The Company We Keep
by BlueWhitney
Summary: Decades have passed, but Sylar still wants to save the cheerleader. If only she weren't suicidal. . .
1. Please Don't Say I Told You so

**Note: Due to FF net's mix-up concerning the use of * symbols as dividers, I have been forced to re-upload every single chapter of this fic (26 to date). In place of asterisks, I have used [] symbols. I don't much like the look of them, but it's better than nothing. Unfortunately, I also inadvertently deleted nearly all my Author's Notes, so let me take this opportunity to say . . .**

**DISCLAIMER: I do not own Heroes. Believe me. If I owned Heroes, Lyle would only ever have been relegated to the background so that viewers would be blown away by his emergence as Super Villain Supreme. (Larry Bennet, SVS.)  
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**To any new readers, let me say that this fic was begun several episodes prior to the end of Season 3 and therefore carries on with a disregard for much of Season 4. Thanks. :)**

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Sylar sits before his desk, focused on the dismantled watch. Completely intent, he prods at the marvelously tiny gears. It's all very Gabriel Gray, but he doesn't feel the need to be ashamed of it anymore. It's just a hobby now, like working a crossword puzzle. He hopes this is a tricky one.

His cell phone startles him, and for a moment he doesn't even recognize the ringtone. He hasn't used it in so long, he'd forgotten it was still active. Nobody calls him.

He flips it open.

"Hello," he says cautiously.

"Sylar," the voice on the other end speaks, and he detects a hint of a Southern accent. He almost smiles, but then he remembers—

"Claire, how did you get this number?"

"It doesn't matter," she responds. There's a slight waver to her voice, but Sylar disregards it for the moment, he's so wrapped up in a disconcerting mix of curiosity and paranoia.

"It matters to me," he insists.

"Someone gave it to me," she sighs, then adds pleadingly, "Sylar, just please leave it alone, okay?"

Sylar stands abruptly, shoving his chair behind him.

"It's that—that—the one with the phones and the computers, and . . ." His mouth has gone a little dry, and his heart-rate had quickened. "Good god, is he still alive? What was his name?"

"As _if_ I'm going to remind you."

"Micah!" Sylar snaps his fingers on his free hand. "Micah _something_ . . ." In an absurdly premature vision, he can already imagine carving the boy's head open.

"Son of a _bitch_," says Claire, an edge of sadness to her biting tone. "I should've known. The first time we speak in years, and all you can think about is killing some old man whose name you don't even remember. Not so much as a how-do-you-do."

That's right. Micah would be old now. Sylar sometimes forgets that other people age and change over the course of time. In his mind's eye, Micah is frozen in childhood, Peter Pan style. Now he wonders if Micah might even be in some rest home for the elderly, and he files the possibility away for future consideration. Sylar's come a long way from his frenetic past. He's settled down somewhat. But he still allows himself the occasional indulgence when it surfaces.

"How do you do?" he asks ironically. Then his brow creases. Come to think of it, how _does_ she do? And why the hell is she calling him, of all people?

"Not so great," she admits, and he notices how close to tears she sounds.

"No?"

"No." There's a pause. A long pause. He might think she'd hung up if he couldn't hear her breathing.

"What _is_ it, Claire Bear?" he snaps impatiently. "Got a body out back and can't quite lift it?"

"He left," she says bluntly. "Seems like . . . you were right."

A grim smirk creeps over his face. Shaking his head, he reseats himself.

"So Prince Charming finally made tracks," he says. "Well, I wish I could say I—"

"_Please_ don't say I told you so," she begs.

"Fine," he says. Leaning back in his chair, he takes the watch from his desk and fiddles aimlessly with it. He sits in silence, waiting for Claire to break it, and when she doesn't he gives in and mutters petulantly, "I _did_, though."

"Oh, my god!" Claire blurts angrily. "Is that all you can think of to say to me? _Really_, Sylar?"

"I might think you'd be apologizing for not listening to me!" he fires back, his fingers tightening convulsively around the watch. "I didn't need intuitive aptitude to tell you _that_ wasn't going to work! I mean, sure, men love a younger woman—it's so stereotypical it just _has_ to be true, that's what you thought, wasn't it? And I bet it was cute for a while . . . until people started assuming you were his daughter. Or maybe even his _granddaughter_, for God's sake?"

"Calling you was a silly thing to do."

"Yet _another_ fact I could have told you," he says, and he places the watch back on the table, slamming it down with a harder _clack_ than he intended. "Did you think I'd make you feel _better_? What was the point in calling me, anyway? You go to the trouble of tracking down Micah and getting him to pull my number out of his feeble old ass, and for what?"

"You know why," she answers bitterly. "You always did."

"_Meaning_?" he asks with a roll of his eyes.

"Meaning there is no one else to call. Who else could _possibly_ comprehend what it's like to go through life like this, day after day, standing still while the world spins around us? While everyone and everything we care about just spins away?" Claire's voice strangles on the last word.

"Caring was your mistake," he says callously, but his eyes narrow. There's something about this conversation that's sending a chill creeping up his spine.

"You know, I guess that's one of the few things I can honestly say I don't regret about my life," she continues as if she hadn't heard him. He knows she's crying now. "If I could've wished this hell on anybody, it would've been you."

"Claire . . ." He ignores her animosity. "Why did you call, again?"

She laughs through her tears, a laugh full of grief and hopelessness.

"'So long, sucker' is what it comes down to, I guess," she tells him. "I called to say goodbye."

No, he doesn't like this at all, not one bit.

"You can't possibly—I—I mean-" He stammers, torn between incredulity and an irrational sense of fear he can't shake. "Claire, you can't die."

"Now, we both know that isn't true," she says. "One shot to the sweet spot, and it's all over. You going to tell me goodbye?"

He laughs, but it's more anxious than humorous.

"Last chance," she prompts ominously.

"_Goodbye_, my ass," he says with insincere sarcasm. "More like good_night_." The feigned sarcasm drops out of his voice as if grabbed by gravity. Leaning forward, he growls into the phone, "If you even try it, I swear to god I'll be there so fast you'll—"

_Click_. She hangs up. It _has_ to be a challenge, he thinks. At least, he meets it that way, darting up from his chair so fast this time that it overturns and nearly trips him up as he starts for the door.

Her legal name has been Claire Rutherford for decades, but Sylar has refused to recognize it for as long. He has always considered her marriage no more than a phase, possibly something she couldn't help, stuck as she was in the body of an impulsive teenager. Now he feels entirely justified. He'd be smug if he wasn't for the task at hand. Robert Rutherford could go to hell and take his name with him. She would always be Claire Bennet to Sylar.

So, snagging his coat and keys from a rack across the room with a gesture of his arm, he leaves to stop Claire Bennet from pulling whatever idiotic move she's planning.

_Or to pry the goddamn bullet out of her head myself_, he amends, returning to pocket a miniature pair of pliers from the mess on his desk before he locks up. _Either way._

Thankfully, it doesn't make much of a difference.


	2. Letters

_Dear Rob_, writes Claire Rutherford. She is sitting at the dining room table, a scattering of loose notebook paper and envelopes before her. Her blond hair is pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, and her eyes are red. Waterproof mascara is a blessing in an otherwise accursed existence.

_Dear Rob_,

_I won't say I'm sorry, but I need you to know that this isn't your fault. The problem isn't that you don't love me anymore. It's that I still love you. If I lived forever—which, as my sorry luck would have it, is a definite option—I would always love you. That's something I just can't face. I love too many dead men already, fathers and uncles and brothers and friends. You'd be the icing on one god-awful joke of a cake. _

_Someone once told me that you would leave, that it was only a matter of time. He said the best case scenario was that I would wake up next to your corpse one morning. The worst case scenario, the more likely one, he said—was this. You'd leave me voluntarily, because you just couldn't handle my warped reality. There's so much wrong about the man who told me that, I wanted to believe he could never be right about anything. He was, though. Usually is, in his own terrible way. _

_So you're sick of me. It's okay. I'm sick of me, too. _

_Forever yours (no pun intended),_

_Claire._

That's the final letter. She saved Robert for last. A sentimental part of her hopes he'll discover it himself, that he'll have a change of heart and come home. More likely, the letter will be handed to him by some stoically sympathetic police officer. Not that it makes much of a difference. She won't be around to see.

In a ceremonial fashion, she drops the other letters one by one into the living room fireplace. Letters to people who still matter to her long after they ceased to exist. There's one addressed to _Dad_, to _Mom, _to _Peter_, to _Nathan, _and so on. Ashes to ashes, it makes sense.

Sylar, in his cynical manner, would say she's stalling. Claire scoffs slightly at the thought of him. He doesn't have a letter. She said everything she had to say to him on the phone. The only sentiment that will remain unspoken between them might be expressed in two simple words, the first beginning with an _F_ and the second with a _Y_. And that never needed to be said.

Noah left Claire a gun, among other things, at the time of his death. For the protection of his precious Claire-Bear, as if she has ever really needed protecting. She holds it now, seated before the fireplace, staring at her letters curling into soot. Robert's letter is on the mantel, among their sunny photographs.

It's awkward, holding the muzzle of the gun to the back of her head. She's afraid she's going to screw it up, but what does she have to lose? She thinks she can pull the trigger with her thumb.

This has been a long time coming. _A long long lonely lonely time,_ Claire quotes.

And it's true what they say—she doesn't even hear the bang.

[] [] []

The first thought that enters Sylar's mind when he whips his rental car to a stop is that Robert Rutherford has more money than good sense. The house is a beautiful two-story affair, styled in a very woodsy way to match the estate. The porch wraps around, overlooking a lake. A _lake,_ for God's sake! He wonders, as he gets out of the car, how many times they went skinny-dipping there in the dark. The ensuing mental images cement his belief that Rutherford is a common fool, and Claire Bennet is well rid of him. And if _she_ didn't seem to suffer from the same shortage of intelligence, she'd know that, too.

He rings the doorbell. It's so polite.

"Claire!" He strives for a nonchalant tone, as if he just happened to be passing through Texas and decided to drop by and see if she was still kicking. Just on a whim.

His thumb punches into the doorbell several times in quick succession, the ensuing _buzz_ getting a little more irritating with every moment that Claire's hands don't appear to brush aside the curtains.

"_Claire!_" Now it's a little less nonchalant, a little more _You answer me right this instant, young lady._ It reminds him forcibly of Noah. This is getting downright embarrassing . . . and frightening. He wants her to come out and yell at him, cry to him, threaten to shoot _him_ if he doesn't get his sorry ass off her front porch. _Something_.

Involuntarily, he sends a nervous spark of electricity into the doorbell, and the resulting shock is painful enough to cause him to yelp and leap away, cursing loudly. He glares down at his hand briefly, watching the singed flesh of his thumb heal, then hauls off and kicks the door, hard. There are easier ways to get in, but he _needs_ this violence. On the third kick, the door bursts open.

It's ironic, but when he sees her body, he feels like killing her.

"You . . . _bitch!_" Sylar spits. For a moment, he is truly convinced she did it just to spite him. When he kneels beside her—she's fallen over in an extremely awkward position, her legs still locked Indian-style—it's personal. He fumbles for the pliers in his pocket. Rakes through her blood-soaked hair to find the entrance wound. Practically_ hammers_ the pliers in.

Wishes she could _feel_ it.

Sylar has some experience with Claire's brain. It doesn't take him too long to bring the bullet out. He smiles at it with grim satisfaction, then flips her over and waits for the haze of death to magically vanish from her eyes.

It doesn't happen as instantaneously as he would like, and that's troubling.

He stands, peering down at her, and he reminds himself that clearly she's been lying there for an hour or two. It might take a few minutes. Looking around to distract himself, the photographs on the mantel catch his eye. There's Rutherford and Claire on the fateful day of their wedding. She's wearing all white and smiling like the idiot Sylar had plainly told her she was. There the two are by the lake.

There's a suicide note from Claire.

Glancing down at her once more, Sylar tears into the letter and skims over it, his dark eyes growing increasingly narrower. When he's finished, he replaces it in the envelope and taps it on the brick, staring down at her pensively. He comes to a decision.

_This is taking too damned long_, he thinks, setting the letter down. _If something's not right . . . well, I can fix it. But not here. _

He disappears from the living room for a while. When he comes back, he has a suitcase. After he plants it in the backseat of his car, he returns and stoops once more beside Claire's unmoving form. Gazing closely, he thinks her eyes might be clearing, ever so slowly. But that may be wishful thinking.

Dragging a dead body would seem grotesque to most people. When Sylar drags Claire down the porch steps, the rhythmic thud of her sneakers fill him with nostalgia. He could carry her, but he's afraid that driving around with a bloody shirtfront will greatly increase his chances of being pulled over. With the same logic, he heaves Claire into the trunk and slams it shut.

Sylar has a single change of heart before he leaves. He removes the letter addressed to Rutherford from the mantel and tosses it into the flames.

He dearly hopes that Rutherford is so overcome with guilt and love for his wife that he returns home, sees the broken door and the bloody carpet—and is promptly scared shitless.


	3. The Nature of Our Relationship

Claire's consciousness returns to her in increments. First she's aware of the steady rise and fall of her diaphragm. Breathe in. Breathe out. Then she's aware of rough fabric and a hard surface at her cheek. She's curled on her side, her knees drawn upward. There's a vague rushing noise that seems familiar. When she feels ready to open her eyes, she finds that they are open already. She is surrounded by darkness.

Claire makes a soft, startled noise in her throat and tries to stretch out, but her feet find a barrier.

"The . . . hell?" she murmurs hoarsely. Then: _Oh-shit-I'm-in-a-coffin!_ The thought is accompanied by a sharp stab of panic. Suicide suddenly seems like a regrettable idea.

But that's not right. Coffins aren't shaped like this. And that rushing noise—it's reminiscent of a vehicular hum.

_Oh shit I'm in a . . . trunk? _

God, it's just her luck, isn't it? She remembers looking into the lens of a camera a lifetime ago and speaking the words, _This is Claire Bennet, and that was attempt number one._ How many attempts will it take? Can there never be an end to this?

To assuage the mounting despair inside of her, she focuses on her location, trying to keep her thoughts slow, steady, calm.

_Okay . . . there is a reason I am here. Someone had to put me here. Someone put my dead body in the trunk and drove off with it. Who would do that?_

And her next whispered words are, "Oh, god, no, _please_, no . . .!"

[] [] []

Sylar flinches, startled, his hands tightening around the steering wheel. Then he relaxes, smiles in satisfaction, and starts searching for a back road to turn into. The kicking, screaming, and general racket from behind the backseat can mean only one thing.

"Well, well," he says loudly several minutes later, when he's found a nice little alcove in the woods. He shoves the keys into the lock on the trunk and twists. "Sleeping Beauty awakens—and it's about damn—"

He doesn't finish, because lo and behold: the immortal cheerleader, all five feet and two inches of her, springing out of the trunk with her hands extended, not to embrace him for saving her life, but to beat the living hell out of him.

"You sick—!" Her knuckles collide with his cheekbone.

"Ow . . ."

"Sick, twisted-!"

"Ow!"

"Demented motherf-!"

"Okay, that's enough!" He thinks she yanked out some hair that time. Shoving her off, he steps lithely out of range of further blows and smoothes down his thick, black hair. They stare each other down for a moment of mutual seething. They're both breathing hard.

"You're _welcome_," he says at last.

Claire is stupefied by his arrogance.

"_You're welcome?_" she repeats scathingly. "For _what?_"

He scoffs.

"You're _here_, aren't you?" he points out.

"Oh—right—forgive me!" she replies, nodding. "That's true, I _am_ here—exactly where I _didn't_ want to be. Thank you _so_ much, Sylar, for doing exactly what I _didn't_ ask you to do. You're _sooooo_ reliable like that. Always have been."

"You wanted it," he challenges, nostrils flared and jaw tight.

"I'm _sorry?_"

"You heard me. That's why you called—you knew I'd rush down here immediately to _save the cheerleader_—"

"_Don't_ say that!" Claire snapped vehemently. "I never want to here that phrase again, ever. Especially from you . . . And if you _saved_ me, then why was I locked in the trunk?"

Sylar blinks. For the first time, he looks mildly flustered.

"Well, you—didn't wake up," he explains. His eyes fasten on hers, and a belated wave of relief washes over him as he remembers the way they had looked back at Rutherford's—cold, milky, and dead. He wants to reach out and touch her face, reassure himself with its warmth, but he doesn't. She'd probably bite him.

"And that explains why I was in the trunk?" she prompts, jerking him out of his reverie.

"Oh, no . . . I just thought . . ."

"Thought you'd have me stuffed and use me as a tasteful centerpiece," she finishes for him, turning away. "Of course." She walks around the car.

"Thought if I could get a hold of some equipment, I could do a transfusion," he corrects irritably, slamming the trunk shut. "Isn't that the way it works?"

Shooting a final glance back at him, Claire climbs into the passenger seat and closes the door. Sylar reenters the car, as well, and starts the engine.

"I didn't call you because I wanted you to save me," Claire insists. She's looking straight ahead, and her voice is dull. He vastly preferred her wrath to this listlessness. "Now just . . . take me home."

"Will do." He cranes his neck to look behind him as he reverses. He misses the look Claire gives him: one of mild surprise at the simplicity with which he complies. But a frown appears on her face once he's back on the main road.

"My house is in the other direction," she informs him.

"That's true."

"You said you'd take me home."

"I didn't say _your_ home." Sylar looks over to gauge her reaction, sees that she is opening her mouth to protest, and hastens onward. "Look, Claire. Maybe you called me hoping I'd come down here, maybe you didn't. But I'm _here_. And _you're _here. And obviously you can't be trusted alone, so . . . I'm sorry, but you've lost those privileges. You're coming home with me."

"_Privileges?_ Who the hell do you think you are?"

Yes, this fury is much better, he thinks. It sends the blood rushing up to her cheeks. It banishes the memory of her death pallor.

"It really doesn't matter who I am," he says coolly. "It only matters _what _I am. You know, I think you've forgotten the nature of our relationship."

"We don't _have_ a relationship. This weirdness doesn't even _begin_ to qualify."

"Oh, yes, we do. Predator," he says, and then he turns to her and bestows, "Prey. That's the way it's always been, and let's be honest, Claire: that's just as much your fault as it is mine. So, I don't care if I'm being fair. And I _really_ don't care if you like it. Just be glad I'm trying to keep you alive now, instead of trying to kill you."

"Yeah, you're such a sweetheart," Claire sneers, hinting at what they both know—that is, he's given up trying to harm her because he achieved it so long ago.

At that moment, she makes a sharp move for the door handle, and Sylar barely manages to get the locks on with his mind in time to stop her from bailing. She sits back in her seat, huffing.

"So are we driving to . . . Where is it you live?" she asks.

"New York," he replies. "And, no, we're not."

"How did you get here?"

"I flew."

Claire puts a palm over her face and groans, "Oh, god, you can _fly_ now?"

"On a _plane_, Claire." He'll never say it, but Sylar still feels the sting of failing to acquire the power of flight. He sometimes thinks he could have tried harder with Petrelli, that maybe he would have if it hadn't been for . . . He sighs angrily, glances at her, and remembers that she's a mess. Her hair is in complete disarray, matted with dried blood, and her shirt bears similar damage.

"We'll have to stop somewhere first," he says. "Before we go to the airport, I mean. You need to clean up. It's getting late, anyway . . . Is there somewhere we could stay the night, maybe some horrible little motel where they won't notice us? Somewhere out of the way . . . filled with meth heads, prostitutes, and escaped convicts—someplace like that?"

"I'm not going to help you kidnap me, Sylar," Claire asserts, disappointing him.

Shooting her a cross look, he employs the car's GPS instead. The stars become visible in the sky as he cruises past several motels until he finds one that looks suitably termite-infested. The VACANCY sign is lit up with the exception of the V and the second A. Two men seem to be brawling in the parking lot, and a few languid spectators are watching from their open doors. One is blatantly clutching a bong. It's exactly what he was looking for.

Sylar parks the car and cuts the engine. He gazes at her profile for a minute. He wants her to comprehend the necessity of what he's doing. He wants her to rely on him. He wants to say something optimistic.

"You know you can't run from me," is what comes out of his mouth. _Well, at least I'm good at futility_, he thinks. _Optimism, not so much. _

Claire tosses him a glare as she reaches for her door, and he obligingly unlocks it.

"I know."


	4. Insignificant

"Lovely accommodations," Claire mocks from the shoddy little bathroom. There's something on the floor of the shower that looks like a dead cockroach. She _hopes_ it's a dead cockroach. Other possibilities boggle the mind and turn the stomach. Flipping on the faucet, she washes it down the drain.

She has to admit, it feels good to get the dried blood out of her hair. And the hot water on her skin is a curiously pleasant mix of punitive and soothing.

Once she's rinsed, she realizes that she forgot to grab a change of clothing from her suitcase. Her bloody shirt and pants are lying in a wet heap in the shower, where she undertook an extremely failed effort to stomp them clean under the water.

"Damn it," she whispers, wrapping the skimpy towel around her torso. But when she steps out, her favorite pair of pajamas are waiting for her, dangling over the doorknob—which, she sees now, is equipped with a broken lock.

When she emerges, clean and still faintly pink from the heat, Sylar suggests they try to get some sleep. She takes the bed, and he grabs a pillow and makes himself as comfortable as possible on the floor. It's only chivalrous . . . not to mention easier to play watchdog from that position. He's not convinced she won't try to bolt the instant he's out.

The motel has only single rooms. It's the sort of establishment that rents by the hour and caters to philanderers who want to squeeze in a quick screw before going home to their spouses. As if in testament to that, about ten minutes after Sylar and Claire turn off the lights, a couple staggers in next door and starts going at it raucously, the headboard banging up against the wall. Sylar's half-afraid they're going to pound their way right through, but he tries desperately to pretend he can't hear them. They have to stop soon enough—he's sure of it—but on and on they go, the only change a steady rise in enthusiasm. He's just decided that this situation could not _possibly_ be any more awkward, when Claire muses from the darkness:

"You know, I was just thinking about Rob."

At which point he rolls over and crushes his nose into the pillow. Death by suffocation has never seemed so attractive.

"Are you awake?" she persists softly.

"Yes," he reluctantly answers. _That's not exactly a lullaby they're playing over there._

"It's funny," she continues. She's lying on her back, and as her eyes adjust to the darkness, she studies the brown water-leak stains on the ceiling. "The habits we form without even knowing it . . . You go to bed with someone for thirty years, night after night, and then suddenly they're gone, and the bed just feels so empty. You just feel so empty. And you can't sleep—you almost don't even want to. It's like having an addiction. Like withdrawal."

Sylar sits up suddenly and props his arms on the side of her mattress.

"Hey, Claire—"

"_That wasn't an invitation_."

He glares at her.

"I wasn't—that's not what I was doing! Honestly, the things you assume . . ." He picks idly at a snag in the blanket. "I was curious . . . What exactly did Rutherford say? Before he took off, I mean."

The question hangs suspended in the space between them. What ensues can't really be called silence—not with the dynamic duo next door. It's more of a pressure, an increased density to the air. He's about to pull back and lie down again, forget he asked, when Claire shifts onto her side, facing him. Some of her damp blond hair falls over her face, but he can still see the pinpoint shine of her eyes.

"He said I made him feel old."

Sylar snorts.

"I see," he says. "So it's like a midlife crisis, only in reverse. . . How does that play out, exactly? He goes out and spends all his money on older women and—what, some kind of used minivan?"

He wants her to laugh, but she's just not having it.

"More like he just dumps his ditzy-looking little wife so people will stop calling him a cradle robber."

"Claire . . ." Sylar shakes his head, eyes still fastened on hers. "You have _got_ to stop sulking. Do you realize—? No, look at me."

Claire rolls her eyes at his lack of sensitivity and begins to turn away, but he reaches out and grasps her arm, drawing her back. She meets his eyes again, indignant.

"Do you realize," he continues, his tone harsh, "that I nearly lost my sanity, my freedom, my _life_, for god's sake, trying to get at your brain? Has that part of our history slipped your mind?"

"Oh, you _did_ lose your sanity!" she snaps. "Trust me."

"And do you _realize_," he says, ignoring her remark, "that you put a bullet in that wonderful brain because you made some man feel exactly what he should feel—old, insignificant, _ordinary?_"

"You mean 'not special,' right, Sylar?"

"Absolutely."

Her eyes flash, and there's an odd expression on her face, a cross between regret and fury.

"You never did know what that meant," she tells him. "Rob's special because he's special to me."

"Your sentimentality doesn't make him special," he disagrees with a smirk.

"_You're only insignificant if nobody loves you_," Claire states firmly, enunciating each word, and she pulls out of his grasp with a jerk of her shoulder. Rolling onto her back, she adds somewhat cruelly, "I guess that means we're the insignificant ones, after all, you and me. Pretty funny punch line, isn't it? Mother nature's one hilarious bitch."

Sylar isn't sure how he should respond to that. Part of him is insulted-an old, old part of him that still bristles at the memory of Gabriel Gray's humble reflection. Another part is a little hurt, and he tries to shun that part, because it makes him feel small and foolish. His face is hot, as if he's blushing, so he's thankful for the lack of light.

_You're wrong,_ he thinks with a vague sense of resentment. _You might be stupid, but you've never been insignificant and you never could be—not even as you define it. _

Finally, he opens his mouth to speak, but:

"Oh, GOD!" screams the woman next door.

"Oh, _god_," Sylar echoes through clenched teeth, his hand over his face. "_Please_ let that be the end of it!"

He thinks Claire let slip a short, involuntary giggle at that moment, but he isn't certain. Maybe it's just the woman again. In any case, whatever he was going to say . . . The moment's over. He can't say it now. Not that it would matter, anyway.

Thankfully, the couple next door has, in fact, expended all their energy. Sylar sprawls out on the floor again, and it's a long time until Claire's voice pierces the silence a final time. She sounds groggy, as if she's drifting off at last.

"How long until somebody misses me, do you think?" she wonders. "Rob has to come home, eventually, even if it's just to get his things . . . and he'll find my letter . . ."

Sylar doesn't bother to enlighten her on that point. He simply feigns sleep, and soon afterward the sound of her steady, deep breathing tells him she's out for the night.

The couple next door leaves. They drive away in two separate cars, and don't seem to have much to say to each other after finalizing their physical exchange. Another group arrives, but they're quieter. Soon, the stink of marijuana smoke finds its way through the thin walls. It's entirely tolerable, compared to the earlier performance.

_All these people_, thinks Sylar, before his eyes close of their own accord, _They come and they go_.

Insignificant.


	5. Inevitability

Claire dreams.

[] [] []

_This is familiar. Kirby Plaza, she's been here before. Not under pleasant circumstances, of course, and this time is no different. Something is wrong. Several things, actually. _

_New York is a ghost town, for one. The buildings look old, ancient even, and many of them are crumbling. Bricks scatter the sidewalks. The windows are broken; the jagged shards that remain are dusty. Claire looks down at her shoes, and there in the street, cracks have opened up in the asphalt, allowing unkempt blades of grass to spring up. She steps away, unnerved, and turns a full circle. _

_Where is everybody? Somebody?_

"_Rob," she whispers. Her throat feels tight with anxiety. She swallows and calls more loudly, "Dad? _Peter!_" _

_Somebody, please, God. Even a stranger. _

_Next comes the real kicker. There's a flickering from above, a great waning in the sky, and when Claire turns her face up, she knows this is it, the big finale. _

_Claire Bennet has outlived the sun. _

_The stars come out in the middle of the day. They come out forever. _

_Alone in a never-ending blackness, she begins walking. She has no knowledge of where she might be headed, nor does it seem to matter. There are hot tears on her face, and her breaths begin coming fast, sharp. Something close to panic is rising in her, but she doesn't fight it off. It has forever to pass, quite literally. _

_Slowly, she becomes conscious of a second set of footsteps closing in behind her. She stops and turns toward them. Hope leaps inside her, and when a hand closes hard around her wrist, the jolt she feels is overridden by jubilation. _

_The strange hand begins to glow, blue-white. It illuminates the two figures standing there in the bygone city, and the instant Claire sees him, she rips her wrist out of his grasp and flings her arms around him. _

"_Oh, my god!" she half-sobs with relief, her tears rubbing off on the front of his shirt as she tightens her embrace. "Please don't go anywhere. Please stay with me . . ." _

_His hand comes up and cups the back of her head, fingers going into her hair to stroke her scalp. _

"Stay_ with you?" His exasperated tone is at odds with the soothing motions of his fingers. "You're the one who's always running away."_

"_Never again," she promises with a slight sniffle. "It's all over, anyway. Where would I go?" _

_His hand leaves her head and takes her arm, pushing her away so he can look her in the face._

"_We can go anywhere," he states simply. "Why are you so negative? Nothing's over—it's just different." He shrugs a shoulder. "This was always inevitable, Claire." _

_Her lips part slightly as she stares at the utter confidence in his shadowed features, the untroubled curve of his mouth. _

"_How can you say that?" she asks with incredulity. "You do realize the _sun_ just went out like a giant light bulb, don't you? How can you be so . . ?" _

_He raises his eyebrows questioningly, waiting on the accusation. But it never comes, because Claire reaches up, grabs his hair, and pulls his face down to hers. _

_Kisses him. _

[] [] []_  
_

Sylar is already up and out of the shower by the time Claire awakens. He steps out of the bathroom, finishing the top buttons of his shirt (black, of course—he _lives_ in black). When he glances at the bed, he blinks, startled. Claire is watching him, lying completely stationary beneath the sheet with her knees drawn up.

"You're awake," he observes, caught off guard, then feels like a bit of a fool for stating the obvious. He brushes it aside deftly: "Good morning."

"Not even if you really _were_ the last man on Earth," she mumbles quietly in return, sleep still in her voice.

"What?"

"Nothing." Claire stretches, then throws the sheet back, sitting up and draping her legs over the edge of the mattress. Her hair is disheveled, her pajamas twisted from her tossing. "Showered, huh? You must've given me—what?—ten whole minutes to make my big escape. Damn."

He gives her a derisive look, then crosses the room to rifle through her suitcase. As he bends over it, his black hair falls wetly over his forehead. She watches him, remembering her dream. If she embraced him now, he would feel hot and vaguely damp, lingering after-effects of the shower. He hasn't shaved—presumably he didn't bring a razor. If she kissed him, the dark stubble on his face would scratch her.

_My ass, it was a dream_, she thinks, running a hand over her face to wipe away the images. _Nightmare is more like it. Night _terror.

A change of clothes lands in her lap.

"Get dressed," he says. "Let's get out of this heap."

_Heap_, she knows, could mean the motel or Texas, probably both. Just anywhere he doesn't want to be.

"Am I not even allowed to dress myself anymore?" she asks, examining what he threw at her: a pair of jeans and a dark green blouse. Along with, dear lord, a pair of lace underwear, upon the discovery of which she cringes, folding it in her fist. She'll stop _wearing _it if it means he'll stop touching it, she thinks. _Honestly—son of a bitch. _

"I'd like to leave as soon as possible, that's all," he explains nonchalantly, closing up her bag. "When we get back to New York, you can wear whatever you want. Go crazy. Go shopping."

He glances over with a smile when he makes the suggestion. Claire doesn't return it, but stands, turning the clothes in her hands.

"Shopping," she repeats. The word brings up a point she's yet to consider till now. "Did you happen to pack my and Rob's joint bank account in there, too?"

Sylar rolls his eyes.

"I have money, Claire," he says, as if it should be obvious.

"Well, everyone has _some_ money," she answers, scoffing.

His response is to reach into his back pocket, remove his wallet, and take out a single bill. Holding it up between his middle and index fingers, he stares at her with a deadpan expression, and before her eyes the paper bill flashes, solidifies into gold.

"I have a _lot_ of money," he clarifies.

Claire nods slowly. He can't tell if she's impressed.

It's giving her an uneasy feeling, this assumption he has. As if he's going to set her up, pay for everything, make it all better. As if he wants her to be dependent on him, like a dog—like Mr. Muggles, may he rest in peace. She has a creeping idea that he didn't come down here to save her at all, but rather because, with Rob throwing in the towel, business was slow and she was a bargain.

Claire maintains her silence until she reaches the door to the bathroom, clothing in tow. There, she turns to him and opens her mouth. But when he lifts his eyebrows like that, her dream punches its way back into her mind. He looked like that right before . . . She falters.

"It's weird when you do that, you know," she says instead of voicing her main concern. "I mean, it's disturbing."

He shakes his head, perplexed.

"When I do what?"

"Show off," she says, her voice hard. She nods toward the now-golden dollar in his hand. "Those little tricks you love so much. None of that belongs to you."

He frowns after her as she disappears into the bathroom. She turns the broken lock, out of habit, he supposes. He runs his thumb over the bill, turning it in his fingers.

Showing off . . . She _asked_, didn't she?

He tosses it onto the bed. It seems a shame to leave it in a place like this, but it's no loss to him. To allay his boredom while he waits for Claire, he tries to calculate how many hookers or milligrams of crack some random patron will undoubtedly be thrilled to buy with it.

"Are you hungry?" he asks when she emerges. He keeps his tone light. There's no reason to let her know he took offense at her remark. Doing so would serve no point but to make it seem accurate.

"Yeah, a little," she answers, running her fingers through her wet hair. Now that he mentions it, her stomach does feel like a tightly crumpled ball in her abdomen.

"We can eat at the airport." He hefts her suitcase and opens the door.

They leave the sad little motel behind, heading for the airport, heading for New York. At the same time, Robert Rutherford climbs into his car, pulls away from far better lodgings, and heads homeward.


	6. Memories and Mood Swings

It's such a nice day, the soft breeze wafting in through the open driver-side window on the way to the airport. It lifts Claire's hair gently around her face. Glancing at her, where she's slouched there staring through the windshield, Sylar can't help but wish she'd liven the hell up. He's getting a little sick of this constant gloominess, but he doesn't say anything. He's still a little nettled from being called a show-off, and he knows that's playing into his annoyance.

"Radio?" he asks lightly, reaching over to push in the knob without waiting for her response. Who doesn't like a little driving music? The previous driver tuned it to an oldies station, and Sylar leaves it there, tapping his thumb on the wheel.

"I love this song," he tells her. A burst of nostalgia fills his chest at the rhythm of the drums—there's a memory there, something exciting and invigorating. "I haven't heard it in the longest time. I remember, I was—" _stalking a woman with an ability _"—at a club."

_Oh, right. _Now he knows why the song hits him so. It's the thrill of the chase coming back to him. The woman is a snapshot in his mind: wavy brown hair, almond eyes, waxed legs that went on forever past the short cut of a gold skirt. _Lovely_ brain. She could do the most amazing things—_should_ have run from the club and hailed a taxi the moment he shouldered through a gyrating couple to approach her.

_But all she wants to do is dance, dance . . ._ He smirks, and without realizing it, his eyes take on the same dark, hazed quality they'd held as he led her out the exit.

"Hard to picture you dancing," Claire remarks.

"Relieves tension," he says with an unseen lift of his eyebrow. He doesn't dance. For a moment he considers saying _I was there on business_, but that's too obvious, very nearly tongue-in-cheek. Claire wouldn't find it funny.

Omitting little facts has become more than a habit over the course of time. It's an ingrained part of his nature. Sometimes, even _he_ doesn't fully realize he's left something out. It makes for pleasanter memories, though. The ugly bits just disappear.

Some of them don't.

[] [] []

"Show me what you do," Sylar commanded, a hand pressed up against the brick wall on either side of her.

"You're gonna have to be a little more specific," the woman said, and she leaned into him, and he kissed her, because obviously she was an idiot and didn't understand the gravity of her situation. He didn't mind coaxing her along, drawing out the fun a little.

"Oh, I'm gonna mess you up," she whispered against his mouth, and if he'd fully understood _his_ situation, it might have struck him as an odd thing to say. But he was in control . . . he thought. Maybe she was just kinky like that.

"How's that?" he murmured, and she responded by sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. After a moment, Sylar drew his head back sharply, a slightly dazed expression on his features. Something was off.

Suddenly, he wanted her lips back, but she turned him so that his back was against the wall, and then she was sliding down his front. The swell of her breasts brushed past him, and he drew in a sharp breath. She knelt down with her knees resting on his shoes, in order to protect her bare skin from the asphalt. He barely noticed the weight. His head was swimming a little. It was strange; he hadn't had anything to drink.

She popped open the bottom buttons of his shirt, then slid his belt out of the loop, tugging on it. Resting her chin against his stomach, she craned her neck back, smiled up at him teasingly.

"Say my name," she ordered.

"Allison Louisa Crow," he recited automatically, without thinking.

Her smile broke open, exposing a row of perfect, white teeth between her full lips.

"See that, now?" she said, laughter in her voice. A part of him knew that wasn't right—why was _she _the one laughing? "I knew you knew. You thought you were so slick—strangers in the night, and all that shit."

She giggled. At _him_. And he didn't kill her on the spot. Something was very, very wrong. _Exceedingly_ wrong.

She pressed a kiss against his stomach, and the most overwhelming wave of lust he'd ever felt swept up through his groin and lower abdomen, forcing a short groan from him. She bit the lower edge of his navel, and his head rocked back, slamming hard into the brick. He swore loudly into the silence of the alley, lifting a hand to touch the now tender spot on the back of his head.

She stood, leaving his belt buckled, which was a gut-wrenching disappointment. But at least her mouth was back. And her tongue.

"You said you wanted to see what I could do," she whispered, kissing his ear. "You like it? Sylar?"

"You knew who I was . . ."

"They talk amongst themselves, special people do, and you've got a distinctive description." She never stopped with the kisses—his eyebrows, his chin, all along his jawline, the pulse in his neck, the hollow of his throat. It was hard to work out what she was saying over the sound of his own breathing. "You're a legend, still, after all this time. The boogeyman . . ."

That felt good, like praise. Her hand felt good, too.

"And now you're all mine," she continued. "Mm, I don't think I like your hair that way. We'll have to fix that." She raked her fingers over his scalp, drawing his hair forward, and breathed onto his lips, "You know, keeping a pet is easy once you figure out how simple their minds are. I've had several. Men or animals, it's all the same. You like to think they love you, but what really makes them stay put . . ." She kissed him one last time. "Is hunger."

_Hunger_. His half-lidded eyes snapped open. Something about that word brought him back to himself a bit. Images popped into his mind, and senses into his consciousness.

Angela Petrelli, may she writhe in hell. The Company. Being lied to. Manipulated. _Kept_—like an animal. Like a useful _pet_. Anger washed through him, purging him.

One deft motion, and Allison Louisa Crow was the one against the wall.

"That's a good one," he said roughly, and he meant it. "I bet you break a lot of hearts." He considered, adding, "And beds."

A thrill of fear flickered across her face, and she visibly tried to crank her ability up a notch. He grinned in response, but it was an ill-humored smile. Sylar didn't like being made a fool of.

"Don't bother!" he snapped. "I turned it off."

"You turned . . . my ability . . ?" Her hands were on her own body now, as if she was feeling for than intangible sense of power. She touched her breasts momentarily, and this time he felt nothing, save for contempt. "How? That's not even possible!"

"Oh, it is," he assured her, raising a hand to kill her. "But it's goddamned expensive, let me tell you. Had to have it imported all the way from Haiti."

And she was dead before she could even begin to comprehend what he meant by that, before she could scream. He cracked her open like a walnut, right there in the alley, but . . .

He didn't take it. He was afraid.

Sometimes he didn't do it on purpose . . . He didn't _mean_ to heal. He just did. And when he looked at a watch, he didn't will himself to understand it. That just happened.

What if he took it, that power (that stunning, provocative, positively _juicy_ power)—and he never knew? He'd know when he used it, of course, but would he ever be certain he _wasn't _using it?

He felt a pit in his stomach at the very thought, and he knew to walk away. Be satisfied she was dead, and let that be the end of it. Hurting people was his pastime, but he was loath to hurt _himself_.

Sylar looked back at her only once as he left, pausing at the end of the alley, with a Gabriel-esque notion that he might turn into a pillar of salt. Her head was in shadows, but her long legs stuck out of her gold skirt, catching what dim light there was. For no reason at all he thought of shorter legs, pumping furiously beneath a cheerleading skirt, running up the bleachers to escape.

He'd heard Claire Bennet was getting married.

He gazed at where Allison's exposed brain probably was for another long moment, then wrenched his eyes away and turned into the window-lit sidewalk.

He'd been Gabriel in his life. Sylar. Others, too, from time to time. But he didn't want to be _that_ person.

[] [] []

The song isn't filling him with anything like excitement anymore. His fingers have stilled their tapping on the wheel. What is that under his ribcage—shame? Horror? Regret, maybe?

Restlessly, he switches the channel, and another song pours out of the speakers—another classic, but a different genre.

Claire makes a slight noise of surprise in her throat.

"That was our wedding song," she murmurs a little wistfully.

Sylar's mouth thins.

"_Screw it_," he growls under his breath, punching the radio off with extreme prejudice. "I hate music."

They've reached the airport, anyway.

He's in a bad mood when he climbs out of the car (which he never intended to return to the rental company). Claire stretches as she closes the passenger door, and she looks around as if she failed to notice the blue sky till now.

"Well," she says, shrugging, "nice day for flying, anyway."

He raises his eyebrows, looking at her.

"Careful, Claire Bear," he says bitingly. "That almost sounded cheerful."

"What's _your_ problem?" she asks, surprised and a bit affronted by his tone.

"No problem," he answers, rolling his eyes as he snatches up her bag. "Just a five-foot blonde with a death wish, is all."

"Five-foot _two_," she adds irritably, taking the bag away from him.

"In your shoes." He sighs, sullen. "Let's go."

Without thinking, he reaches out and grasps her free hand. When she tries to pull it back, he gives her a definite _look_. She gives up.

"I've done a lot for you, Claire," he lectures as they make their way to the entrance. "You don't even know the half of it."

"What have you done for me?" she asks skeptically. "Aside from abducting me at present—much obliged, by the way."

_I could have made you forget your wedding song _and_ your wedding, period_, he thinks, Allison Crow's face lingering behind his eyes. _You wouldn't have known what hit you._ It isn't that he wants Claire, he tells himself. But if she wanted _him_—that might have been an interesting change. Might have staved off boredom for a few weeks.

"It doesn't matter," he replies. "You're determined to be ungrateful."

"You cut my _head_ open, you narcissistic bastard!"

He laughs darkly, which is a mistake, and says, "Oh, _sorry_," which is a bigger mistake. Her hand rips out of his fingers, and he has to lunge to catch it up again, squeezing it harder this time, his own hand white-knuckled.

"I swear to god, Claire!" he snarls into her hair, dragging her through the doors and onto the shining tiles. "I will _actually kill_ everyone here if you don't cut it right the fu—"

"_Excuse _me, sir!"

They both still instantly, and looking around, see a somewhat rotund female security guard making her way toward them. Sylar straightens, but he keeps a grip on Claire.

"Is there a problem, sir?" questions the guard. She turns her eyes to Claire and adds more significantly, "Ma'am?"

"Oh, I see," says Sylar, cutting in with a smile. He holds up his palm, the one that isn't occupied keeping Claire at his side. "Look, it's not like that. Trust me, if anyone's battered in this relationship, it's me. Hands me my ass every night before bed." He looks at Claire. "Isn't that right, pumpkin?"

Claire shoots him a slightly sickened look before turning her eyes on the security guard.

"Between you and me, I think he gets off on it," she says dully but complacently enough. No need to get everyone in the terminal cut up like jack-a-lanterns.

The security guard throws Sylar a questioning look, and he shrugs as if to say _Guilty as charged_. With a slightly disgusted shake of her head, she waves them on. As they pass her, he feels an upswing in his mood, accompanied with a strong urge to thump Claire on the back and say _That's my girl!_ He resists.

Getting through security is tedious, but they have time to eat before they board their flight. He releases her hand, at least, when they sit down, since she seems to have calmed down. They order nachos, but whereas he orders something alcoholic to go along with it, she asks for sweet tea.

"I thought you liked margaritas," he observes. He saw her drink one once.

"There's nothing more depressing than being carded," she explains, plucking a tortilla chip from the plate.

"Not sure many women would agree with you there."

"Most people are idiots," she mutters, popping the chip into her mouth.

He smiles at her cynicism and raises his bottle to clink it against her glass.

"I love it when we agree," he says happily.

Claire looks away as she chews and, closing her eyes, shakes her head—and smiles despite herself. She doesn't want him to see. She'd forgotten how infectious his particular brand of crazy could be sometimes. It should worry her . . . _did, _a little . . . but, hell, she offed herself just last night, what does she have to lose? Maybe she could use a little crazy.

It takes her by surprise, but her optimism only seems to grow, corresponding to the plane's ascent into the sky. He's given her the window seat. So chivalrous.

Claire remembers what she wrote in her note to Robert, about Sylar typically being right. Maybe this is another such instance. These are hardly ideal circumstances, but maybe it will be good for her to get out of Texas. Maybe suicide _was_ a rash decision.

Randomly, Sylar makes a soft noise of outrage in his throat and curses under his breath.

"What's the matter?" Claire asks, looking over at him with raised eyebrows.

"Oh, nothing," he says, but clearly he's agitated.

"Tell me."

He shakes his head, a dark look on his face, and responds without looking at her, as if he's talking to himself.

"I meant to look up Micah."

Claire's eyes widen, and she stares at his profile for a moment, studying the intense set of his face.

_And by 'look up' you mean 'carve up,'_ she thinks, her new-found hope waning. She turns to gaze out the window.

"I guess I should have . . . omitted that, too" he says a moment later. "Just forget I said it."

"Will do."

_Mile high with a psychopath_. _Lord, I wish I had my gun._

The rest of the flight, Sylar struggles with a desire to tell her about Allison Crow. He's never told anyone-the entire incident was embarrassing-but for some reason he wants Claire to know he had a chance to own that ability and chose not to. He wants her to know that, somehow, she had something to do with that. But he can't tell her, because the rest of it might come out, too. That would ruin everything, because though she might disdain his company, she no longer has any reason to fear him. And she _would_ fear him again-might be positively petrified-if she knew about the Haitian.


	7. Husband

Micah never misses his daily visits to the Twelve Oaks Rest Home. His wife lives there, and he loves her deeply. He regrets that she has to be there, misses having her at home with him, but her fits are too severe these days. When she's sane, they're best friends, holding hands and taking walks through the grounds. When she's not, he just can't handle her. This duality in her personality reminds him unpleasantly of his mother.

He hasn't told her Claire came to visit him. Telling her, the reason for the visit in particular, would disturb her dreams for many nights to come. So Micah keeps that information to himself, and it stews inside him for a couple of days.

He didn't want to give Claire that . . . _man's_ number. But she looked so hopeless, so nearly lifeless, that he gave in to her only request. Ever since she left, hugging him in a brief but oddly significant way, he's had an unshakable feeling that he made a grave error.

When Micah gets home, he can't put it off anymore. He sets his cane down by the couch, picks up the telephone, and dials the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford.

Robert Rutherford has aged rather well. At fifty-three, his light brown hair is streaked with grey, but it's all there, no thinning or receding. He still cuts a fine figure in his suit. All in all, he's handsome.

But not at the moment.

Frantic, his footsteps raise a cacophony as he pounds down the staircase to answer the jangling telephone. Even as he rips the receiver up to his ear, his eyes are drawn back to that spot before the fireplace, where the cream-colored carpet is a mat of dark red and brown.

"Blood," he says, his voice a throaty croak.

"I—excuse me?" The voice on the other end sounds elderly, male.

"What?" Quickly, Rutherford clears his throat and shakes his head, snapping himself out of it.

"This . . . this is Micah Sanders." The voice is hesitant at first, thrown off by Rutherford's obvious distraction, but then it recovers. "You might remember my wife and I, we attended your wedding."

"Of course," Rutherford says automatically, gripping the mantel with a clammy hand at the sound of the word _wedding._

_Michael who?_ he wonders, trying desperately to get a hold on the situation. How can such normalcy as a phone call still exist when his wife is nowhere to be found and there's goddamn blood on his goddamn _carpet? _

"Would it be possible for me to speak with Claire, Mr. Rutherford?"

Rutherford's breathing is shallow.

"Why are you calling?" he asks sharply. The voice on the other end goes silent for a moment at the angry desperation in Rutherford's tone.

"I wanted to make sure she was all right," Micah answered finally. "That's all. I've been thinking about her lately. We're old friends, you know."

The false-casualness in the old man's tone drives a stake of suspicion into Rutherford's chest.

"Did my wife contact you?" he demands. "Did she say something, did she tell you _anything_—?"

"Claire isn't there, is she?" Now the voice is sadly resigned, as if perhaps the man suspected as much all along and had been trying to deny it.

Rutherford turned to the carpet once more, shaking his head, lips parted silently.

"I don't know," he says at last, feebly.

There's a faint _click_, and Rutherford purses his lips to cry _Wait!_ but it's no use. He's left listening to the dial tone and desperately trying to remember the man's name.

He stands before the stain on the floor.

_Ashes in the fireplace, _he observes. It's summer. What was she burning?

Blood on the floor. He steps away from the large stain and follows the narrower trail of it, leading across the floor and out the front door, which he found open upon his arrival.

Drag marks that end a small way from the porch.

Rutherford wanted rid of his wife—that's true. But, god, what sort of surreal nightmare is _this_? He didn't want her to _vanish_.

"Sanders," he breathes softly to himself. "He said Sanders."

[] [] []

_There she goes_, Micah ponders, settling himself on the couch and fiddling absently with the crook of his cane. There's an uncomfortable space inside him. _Down the rabbit hole_, _good luck and goodbye._

Claire Rutherford is alive. He's as certain of that as he is of his own wife's rapidly approaching death.

Whether Claire's lively status is to her benefit or not . . . Well, that he isn't so sure of anymore.


	8. Home Sweet Home

New York is a hustling, bustling dream. It sets a comfortable buzz deep in Claire's body, a relaxation that feels almost alien.

_Like I'm a medium_, she thinks nonsensically. Because for all it's activity, it feels haunted, as if she's crossed over at last into the land of the dead. She is so focused on picking out familiar faces—faces she's never seen before, but god they look _so_ familiar—that she pays no attention to the one riding with her in the taxi.

Sylar watches her closely. Her eyes seem more animated. What exactly she finds so interesting, he has no idea, though his eyes once or twice dart to the window to try and catch a glimpse of something that seems to please her.

Once, she sees a tall, nondescript man wearing horn-rimmed glasses, and her lids flicker shut for a second in pleasure. It should hurt, she thinks, but it doesn't. It feels wonderful.

Midway to their stop, the driver looks into the rearview mirror and flinches at the sight of his occupant's face—the tall, dark man is staring at the petite blonde with such naked ferocity, he seems on the verge of biting into her. The driver squares his shoulders, faces forward—does not look back again.

[] [] []

A young man, Joshua, walks briskly down the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. He passes the bakery, and as the scents of pastries fill his nostrils, he catches the eye of a woman across the street. She's standing by a cab, gazing at him with a strange, dreamy smile. Lifting her arm, she waves.

He glances behind him before turning back. Taking his hand from his pocket, he pushes his bangs out of his face and returns the gesture, a bemused but agreeable lopsided smile on his lips. He has no way of knowing he bears an uncanny resemblance to a dead man.

Her companion steps out of the cab, having just paid the driver. This man dressed in black sees her waving, follows her gaze, and, with a frown, reaches out to grasp the hand she lifted in greeting. Joshua drops his arm to his side as the pretty woman turns and allows herself to be led away by this imposing figure. He stares at her retreating form for a long moment before someone shoulders past him rudely on the sidewalk, and he continues on his way.

[] [] []

"You live _here_?" Claire asks in mild surprise.

"Sure," Sylar answers, shoving his keys in the lock. "I bought the building years ago. What were you expecting? A solid gold mansion with a statue of myself out front? Not that I didn't consider it, but my god, the taxes—it just wasn't worth it."

She remains silent, staring at the building, and he looks at her sharply as he turns the knob. Lowering his voice, he asks:

"Or did you mean, how can I live in a place where I once killed a man?"

She meets his eyes, raising her brows at his frankness.

"Well, to be fair, there aren't that many places you _haven't_ killed someone," she points out, drawing a chuckle from him. He opens the door.

"After you."

"I get it, though," says Claire, stepping in. "I really do . . ."

"What's that?" He shuts the door behind them, watching Claire spin slowly, taking in the room.

"It's haunted," she says simply, stopping to face him. "Right?"

He squints at her.

"You mean by Mendez?" Claire must be tired, he thinks. Jet lag, maybe? "Sorry, no ghosts, Claire. No psychic painters rattling chains and cursing my name at midnight."

"No, just . . . the past, in general," she clarifies.

"I hadn't thought about it," he says. He scoops Claire's bag off the floor where she dropped it, and walking to put it away, he says, "You know, that's always been your problem, Claire. Soooo fixated on the past . . . If you'd turn around and look at the future, you'd see it's quite a view. For you and me, especially."

"Because it's so unlimited?"

"Exactly."

"Don't you think that makes it a little desolate?"

"No."

"I mean, the more you explore it, the more people around you just drop like flies."

"Who needs a crowd? Me, I like a good, open space."

Claire's mouth thins at his coolness, and she quirks an eyebrow, peeking around a corner.

"Hence the room filled with clocks?"

"Everybody needs a hobby," Sylar says with a smirk, but he flushes ever so slightly. Walking around her, he kicks the doorstop and allows the door to swing shut on the room in which he fiddles with timepieces. They make him feel exposed, somehow.

"Who were you waving at?" he asks, half out of genuine curiosity and half because he wants to turn the scrutiny away from himself.

"Hm? Oh-Peter." She says it so nonchalantly.

There's a pause.

"_Petrelli?_"

"Hadn't seen him in ages."

He looks at her long and hard. Then:

"I can only assume you're screwing with me." He hopes.

"From a distance, it was Peter," she insists smoothly. "Up close, who knows? Hmm . . . I guess there's a lesson in that, isn't there? Something about getting too close, probably . . ."

He doesn't answer. This is one train of thought he doesn't care to ride. Also, he believes she's being ridiculous on purpose, trying to muddle him.

She trails off with a sigh and places her hands on her hips.

"So, where the hell am I supposed to sleep, anyway?"

"Oh . . ." Actually, that's a good question. Sylar rubs his chin pensively. Fancy that, but he didn't take the time to map out an elaborate plan when Claire called him up declaring quits. "Well-the bedroom is upstairs."

"And you're dreaming. Where do _I_ sleep?"

He glares at her.

"You could sleep on the balcony if I didn't think you'd heave yourself over the side-which is probably what _I'll_ wind up doing, now that I think about it," he says menacingly. "Just-just take the bed. I'll find somewhere else to sleep. The couch, I suppose."

Claire isn't satisfied.

"I don't know if I want to sleep in your room."

"I'll make sure and take out all the corpses I've got shoved up under the mattress, Claire Bear, I promise you," he says with a roll of his eyes.

"I'll take the couch." She seems firm on that, so he doesn't argue.

"Fine," he agrees. "You'll fit better than I would, anyway." His legs would drape over the end.

Claire retrieves her bag and heads upstairs without further discourse. Sylar follows her, feeling like a bit of a tag-a-long.

"So this is my room, uh?" she says, taking it in. She likes it, oddly enough. The wall is brick, with several hanging clocks, all perfectly synchronized, along with a generous smattering of bookshelves. Each one is packed to the brim. "Good lord, you haven't read all these, have you?"

"Most of them. Feel free-just don't dog-ear the pages, please. I hate that."

"Yeah, that's the worst." She tosses her bag down at the end of the small, cream-colored couch. Strolling over to a shelf, she notices an interesting title and plucks the book out by it's spine. "_Sex and Your Sanity_," she reads aloud, then looks at him questioningly, something like a smirk barely suppressed on her lips.

Sylar blinks, momentarily at a loss. He forgot that one.

"It's . . ." Suddenly, he doesn't know what to do with his hands, so he jams them into his back pockets. ". . . an eclectic collection."

"Clearly." She flips the book over and reads the back of it leisurely, or pretends to, anyway. In her peripheral vision, his squirming is positively delightful. "You read this one?"

Sighing, he strides over and takes it from her.

"I've read _all_ of them," he tells her.

"A minute ago you said _most_ of them."

"I didn't want to seem unbalanced," he says, giving her a dark look as he looms over her to press it back into the shelf.

Claire tilts her head, bites her lip mockingly.

"As if anyone could ever mistake you for somebody unbalanced," she says. He rewards her sarcasm with a thin smile, and she crosses to the center of the room, dropping onto the couch. Sylar drums his fingers on the shelf for a second, then joins her, sprawling his arm along the back of the couch, behind her head.

"So, what do we do now?" Claire asks.

"Hmph—I don't know," he answers. "I forgot to plan any activities."

There's a moment of mutual silence, and then, with a quiet laugh, Claire remarks:

"I guess if we get _really_ bored, you can always pin me up against the wall."

Slowly, Sylar turns to examine her profile, a very _What . . . the . . . hell?_ expression on his face. It hits Claire a second later, and she blanches.

"I meant—like old times," she hastens to explain, flustered, fists clenched in her lap. "Like telekinesis. It was a joke . . . Came out wrong."

He holds it in for a good ten seconds, fidgeting slightly in his seat, but the laugh finally rips out of him in a loud snort. He doubles over, whacking her in the back of the head with his arm.

"Ow!"

He's laughing so hard he can't even apologize.

"You know what I meant!" she snaps, becoming more incensed the longer he guffaws. "Quit being so goddamn juvenile!"

And crooking her leg back—that cheerleader's flexibility handy as always—she brings her foot up and _shoves_ it into the back of the shoulder, throwing all her weight into it. He slides off the cushion and hits the floor hard on his left knee.

"_Mm_," he grunts, grimacing. His good humor expires at once.

"Get off my bed," Claire orders belatedly.

"It's _my-!_" He breaks off, whipping around to face her. "That hurt, you know."

"Oh, well, _forgive_ me." _Big, brain-stealing baby. _She stretches out on the couch so he can't return to it. "At least you actually _feel_ pain. At least you _know_ when something hurts."

"Still whining about that, are you?" he asks dryly, getting to his feet. "Must be godawful, going through life in that state. No headaches, toothaches-no birth pangs, in your case . . ."

Claire winces at this last, but he doesn't catch it.

"No capping off a midnight bathroom trip with the wonderful experience of ramming your toes into the nightstand." He shakes his head. "I've never pitied anyone so much in my life."

"It made me human," she insists.

"Human is overrated," he replies flippantly.

Claire props herself up on her elbows, staring at him. Her lip curls somewhat.

"So, you don't consider yourself human, then? What are you, some kind of god?" She laughs bitterly. "Should I kneel before you, Oh Great One? Hm? _Savior?_"

He wouldn't mind if she knelt before him. Smirking, he almost says it, but he catches himself even as his lips part, remembering that this entire skirmish began over one silly little double entendre.

"Not quite," he says instead. "As you pointed out—I _do_ feel pain."

Claire thinks about that, and the hard smile on her face spreads into one of pleased malice. Secretly, he finds it stunning. Until she speaks.

"So on your own terms," she postulates, "that makes me better than you."

A muscle in Sylar's jaw twitches almost imperceptibly, and maybe it's the lighting, but she thinks he even pales ever so slightly. For the first time since this mad little episode in her life began, Claire feels as if she's managed to one-up him. Now that she's stuck the knife in, she can't resist twisting it a little.

"I mean, I'm just saying." She shrugs, _ever _so languidly. "If you can't be the _most_ special, there's hardly a point in being special at all. Don't you think?"

He presses a knuckle against his mouth. She wonders if he's trying to stop himself from seeing if he can _make_ her feel pain again.

"No offense," she tacks on for the express purpose of offending him.

He lowers his hand, places both on his hips. There's a vaguely sour but somehow knowing smile on his lips.

"So that's what you want, is it?" he asks, voice husky with what Claire can only assume is the resurfacing of that century-old inferiority complex he prefers to keep buried.

She squints at him. "Sorry?"

"This whole thing, this whole . . . _adventure_—" He makes a lovely trigger motion toward his head. "—amounts to nothing more than your misguided attempt to _express yourself_." He nearly snorts. "Those teenage hormones, they never quit, do they? Oh, god . . ."

"What the hell are you talking about?" She was so certain she was gaining the upper hand, and now this. It's disconcerting.

"You want to hurt something, don't you?" he asks, eyes suddenly piercing. "You want to _externalize_ all that unrequited-love-spurned-and-jilted-wife tragic _crap_ bubbling away in your sad little heart, is that it? Get it all out?"

She feels the heat rising in her cheeks. He sees it, sees how they go pink.

_Oh, lord, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned_, he thinks. _Replace fury with _idiocy_._

"But you can't feel pain," he continues. "So you called me up, thought you'd give me a little taste of it, screw my day all to hell. You knew I'd come. You _wanted_ me to come. You wanted me to go out of my head the way you were going out of yours. And now, what? You're going to try to _hurt my feelings?_"

Claire is glaring at him now, but it doesn't deter him. In fact, he's just picking up steam as he goes, and he's starting to get that old, manic gleam in his dark eyes.

"It's a little pathetic, Claire," he tells her, tipping his head as if to soften the statement. "Let's work this out, you want to? I say we have a good, old-fashioned therapy session."

And he turns and strides out of the room, down the staircase. Claire remains in her half-sitting stance on the couch, angry and bewildered. The latter sentiment increases tenfold when he returns and flips some small black object toward her. It spins through the air and, as she flinches, stops right before her face.

A short, black-handled kitchen knife hovers in the air. It's shiny-clean, stainless steel. The blade is smooth and un-serrated. Sharp.

Claire quirks an eyebrow.

"Is this your idea of therapy, Doctor?" she asks derisively. "Equip the suicidals with sharp objects?" Nevertheless, she reaches out and strokes the handle with her fingertips. "How goddamn ground-breaking of you. I smell a Nobel prize in the works."

He faces her squarely.

"Cut me."

She freezes when he says it, looks up at him as if to gauge his insanity—which, to be fair, is off the charts on a _good_ day.

"Beg pardon?"

"It'll make you feel better," he says simply, then tips her a wink, adding, "Trust me, I've been there. This is what you need, and this way we can get it all out in the open without any more sad little verbal jabs."

"_Cut_ you." It isn't a question.

"Into ribbons." He raises his eyebrows almost innocently and politely adds, "If that's what you want."

"You're demented." She lies back again and shuts her eyes, thoroughly ignoring the blade hovering over her chest.

"Oh, do you need help getting started?"

Sylar doesn't appreciate it when someone—_anyone_, even Claire, and he grants Claire heaps of leeway—implies that he's lacking in some way. Right now, he feels like showing her exactly how _special_ he is. So he does something he hasn't done in quite some time, something he once vowed he was finished with entirely.

"How about now?"

Claire sucks in a slow, ragged breath. Opens her eyes.

"_You despicable son of a bitch_," she hisses.

"What's the matter, honey—aren't you glad to see me?" says Robert Rutherford's voice, lips, face.

Nostrils flaring, Claire wraps her fingers around the knife.


	9. Good Old Fashioned Therapy

"I came back," says not-Rob. "Aren't you happy?"

Claire's face is contorted with rage.

"_Stop it_," she forces out.

"I got all the way to the Mexican border," he continues, unperturbed. "I thought getting out of the country might put things into perspective. I thought, sure, I'll hang out, have a few tequilas, maybe a margarita or two—and then, of course, I thought of you. You always did love margaritas. I can still see you sipping one at our wedding . . . Remember the wedding? How happy we were?"

Claire rises up at the waist, rigid as a board, till she's sitting with her legs stretched out in front of her. The look she levels on him is deadly.

"You piece of shit—you came to my _wedding_?" She _specifically_ asked him not to.

"Claire—I was the groom."

"You promised you wouldn't come!"

Why can't she play along? He lapses back into his own body for a moment.

"Actually," he says, raising a finger, "I promised I wouldn't _show_—and clearly I didn't. It's your own fault, really. If you knew me at all, you would have been on the lookout for loop—"

"Would have known not to trust a single word that came out of your lying mouth," she cuts in. "Right."

He lowers a brow.

"Who're you talking to?" He shifts back and forth momentarily, Sylar to Rutherford and back again. "Say when."

She clamps her lips into a hard line.

"You know, killing is cathartic," he tells her. "So, c'mon—kill me a little. Just try it. I bet you like it." He sing-songs the last bit to her like a pusher trying to coax her into her first trip.

Nothing. Well, she's slowly turning the color of a beet, but aside from that, crickets.

"Hmm . . . Oh." He chuckles. "You want to know something else about your wedding, Claire? It's funny. I think you'll laugh."

She highly doubts that.

"Do you remember cousin Gordon?"

"Who?"

"Tall fella, pretty forgettable, I admit—you danced with him at once point when they were handing you around like a cheap hooker."

She shakes her head, uncomprehending, and he smiles a dark yet infinitely smug smile. Leaning in conspiratorially, he drops his voice.

"Guess who doesn't exist."

A cold wave sweeps through her body. He danced with her—he _danced _with her. At her _wedding_.

"I didn't like using this ability," he says. "I never did. But it seemed only fair I be there to dance with you—give you away, if you will."

Claire starts up from the couch, the knife suddenly feeling custom-made for her hand.

It's a reaction, at least.

"Tell me, sweetheart," he says, shifting into Rutherford again. "Does this look right? Do I look old enough? Maybe I should throw in a little _decrepit _for good measure . . . What about now?" Sylar truly isn't certain. He hasn't seen Rutherford in decades. Never found him particularly interesting, aside from his unfortunate familial connection.

"_That's enough_," Claire bites off. "I'm not going to play your weird little game, Sylar. God, you are _sick_, you know that?"

"Mm, I guess you're more used to seeing the back of me these days," he presses on, doing an about-face. "Is that better? Well, it's better for me, anyway. I don't much like looking at you—you make me feel so _old_."

The word tumble off his lips, and he feels odd for a split second. _Dirty_, almost. The way remorse feels. It passes.

Meanwhile, Claire feels as if _she's_ been stabbed.

He hears her breath hitch, and he turns his head, cocking his ear to reap the full effect.

"I can't believe you—" _Danced with me, you _bastard "—and now this, and . . ."

Quickly, she crosses over to him, shoving him around so she can look him in the face—well, Rutherford's face.

"You ruin everything."

To her chagrin and his immense interest, she is close to angry tears.

"That's all you know how to do—_violate_ things. And people. Take something good and make it—make it—"

Again, he wants to ask her who she's stammering at. If anyone ever failed to realize he had something good in front of him, it's Rutherford. Where Sylar is a god among men--and he _is, _though Claire may scoff at the notion--Rutherford is the king of all fools.

Claire ceases her search for words and draws the knife back, almost without thinking. Then, she halts, her arm trembling. His eyes flick to it, and she sees him slip for a moment. He has the nerve to look _excited_. At that moment, she wants the violence so badly she can taste bile rising in her throat. She's going to do it. _Gut_ the son of a bitch. Spill him all over his own floor.

But a part of her remains hesitant. He looks like her husband, and can she cut her own husband? Even if, possibly, a minuscule part of her deep, deep down . . ?

Her arm swings forward. She sticks him instead of slicing him as she intended, burying the blade in his shoulder.

He cries out. It's what he wanted, but holy hell, it still hurts.

She cries out, too, and that's encouraging.

"Claire—darling—what did I violate?" Slipping into Rob is easy, more fun now that he's finally got her all revved up. "Oh, are you referring to—_her?_"

It's a shot in the dark that might fall wildly astray. But her face changes, and he knows he's hit the bull's-eye.

"She didn't mean anything, not really," he says.

"What do _you_ know about it?" Claire breathes, and he can see she's trying to keep a grasp on the situation, remember who's taunting her. She gives the blade a small but vicious twist as she rips it out. He grunts.

"You were the one I cared about," he continues, the wound healing even as he speaks. "You were my rock—weren't you? You always were . . ."

He pauses, catching his breath. The truth of the words flood him as thoroughly as the pain, and he has to remind himself he's playing a part. Crushing any and all kind sentiments, he locks on her eyes to deliver the killing blow.

"But let's face it, Claire. I need variety. All men do. And that's the one thing you can't provide, because—well—you never change, do you?"

A tiny but furious screech bubbles it way up and out of her throat, and dear lord, but it's electrifying. He watches, almost rapt, as her hand arcs up again, and she cuts him right across the face, tearing a jagged Glasgow smile into him. Nerves shocked and burning, his eyes watering, he doesn't see her nip around to his back. When she plants the bottom of her foot flush on his backside, he goes down without a fight. Blood rains onto the floor with numerous, minute taps.

On his hands and knees, he looks up at her as she rounds him again. The cuts are disappearing, but the smile stays.

"I was just using her, Claire," he informs her in a voice of mock reason, the lower half of his face a mask of scarlet. "Why can't you see that? She was just there to take the edge off when you couldn't quite do it anymore. It's you I—"

"No, you went to her," Claire cuts in, her voice strangled, the color high in her face. Squeezing her eyes shut for a second, she shakes her head fiercely, rebuking herself. "_He_ went to her. When he left me. I'm positive."

"I didn't . . ." he denies with a heavy dose of _I totally did. _And it's probably true.

"Stop lying!" she blurts, then claps her hand over her mouth. Brows raised, not-Rob rises up on his knees, observing her. Feeling herself teetering on the edge of falling into this mad charade, she tries to turn away, retain her sanity. She doesn't quite make it.

He gasps, stunned, when the toe of her shoe catches him under the chin. It's not quite as painful as being stabbed, but it's every bit as disorienting, because despite her short legs, she packs a damn fine kick. Must have been a wonder to behold as a cheerleader. His head rocks back and the rest of his upper body follows suit, colliding with the floor. For a second, he blinks up at two of her. Twice the amount of Claire Bennet, striding around him, circling like a feline predator and swinging the knife at her side like a pro.

Dear lord, _Claire_ . . . If she could see herself now, see what _he _sees, the mere memory of that frail domestic life in Texas would send her into uncontrollable peals of laughter.

"You always were a liar," she states heatedly, the dam of tears having finally ruptured. "You never said exactly what you meant. _I do_ clearly didn't mean shit to you, so who knows about anything else you told me? Like those three times, every singe one—you said it didn't matter, but did it? And _how _did it matter? Were you sad? Angry? God, were you _happy _about it, you bastard?"

Three times? What? He doesn't even know what she's talking about anymore. Somehow, she's the one in charge now.

"And what about _I love you_, was that real—ever, even _once?_"

As if to let him know the question is rhetorical, she brings her heel down on his knee. _Hard_. It dislocates.

"_Ow!_" He bends instinctively toward the injury, hearing it grind back into place, but she pushes him back down.

"Or did it just get you off to be with me? Huh? Nailing some _circus freak_ like me?"

She stomps on him. In a sensitive area.

The world goes white for a moment, and he may scream, he isn't certain. Surely a long stream of profanities are issued via Rutherford's vocal cords.

"Oh, god . . ." he groans. And she complains about a lack of pain, she actually does. . . "Oh, god."

When she drops to her knees with clear intent on cutting him again, Sylar feels a tinge of relief. He never thought he'd relish the idea of being stabbed, but damn it to hell and back, her foot is getting _old_.

"The worst part of it," she says, crawling up beside him to bring their vision level, gazing at him from beneath the severe set of her honey-colored brow, "is that I knew you were a liar and a cheat, and I loved you anyway."

Disheveled hair about her face, she drags the point of the blade up his thigh, around his hip, across his navel, splitting threads and just barely breaking the skin.

"Every way you found to hurt me, and I still loved you, and you couldn't accept one tiny little flaw."

She slings one knee over his thigh, angles the knife over his chest.

"Immortality?" he rejoins hoarsely. "Pretty big-ass flaw, don't you think? Puts a whole new spin on _till death do you part_—and you called _me_ a cheater."

She leans forward, grabs his hairline in her fist and looks down into her husband's face, her nose an inch from his. There's a slight sheen of sweat on is forehead, and she can feel his breath against her lips. It's coming quick, whether from pain or anticipation of it or something else entirely, she isn't certain. And doesn't really care.

"Maybe I'll always love you, Rob," she professes. Might as well say his name--in for a dime as a nickel, as the saying goes. "Because maybe I'm just that goddamned stupid. But you were telling the truth about one thing."

He can feel the tip of the metal against the front of his shirt, pressing into his skin.

"We're through."

She pierces him right through the heart, _looking_ at him as she holds it there, hilt to the gash. He feels the muscle spasm around the blade. Eerie, as her face goes dim before his eyes.

"Claire . . ." He struggles to maintain consciousness, his fingers digging at the floor. "Claire, pull it out."

His heart struggles to keep pumping, shredding in the motion even as it attempts to heal around the foreign object. He's never felt anything like it—and he suspects he won't be feeling it for much longer.

A rippling sensation runs the course of his flesh, his final accomplishment before he loses her, the room, everything.

Claire blinks, and it isn't Rob lying beneath her anymore. Her eyes widen, and her lips part.

"Oh—oh, shit." She plucks the knife out and tosses it aside. Slaps him across the face—twice, and with a sharp _crack_, because honestly, shame on him—then shoves his shirt up.

The stab wound is healing. Thank god.

Wait, should she be relieved, particularly after a stunt like that?

"That was . . ." he speaks quietly, coming back to himself. Quickly, she moves from him, standing and walking away on wobbly legs.

_Amazing_, he finishes inwardly. _You were ruthless_. He just wishes it really had been the other man. Without the accompanying agony, he might have enjoyed the surprise assault on Rutherford's groin just a touch more.

"Huh," says Claire, swallowing.

"Huh?"

She glances over her shoulder at him, where he still lies sprawled on the floor, generously swathed in his own blood.

"I guess I _do_ feel a little better," she grudgingly acknowledges.

He grins, the white of his teeth shocking in the red mask of his face.

"I told you so."

She allows a short, incredulous laugh. Sylar _would_ find a way to brag about being the victim of a brutal stabbing.

"So, what now?" She looks around, trying to smooth her hair down. She's referring to the state of the room, distancing herself from the previous chaos by focusing on stains and glancing about for the gory knife.

"Um . . ." Twisting, he finds one of the clocks. "Well, we haven't eaten since the airport. What do you think—ice cream?"

Licking the hot fudge off the spoon later that evening, Claire realizes it's the first thing she's truly tasted in days.


	10. A Comfortable Groove

It's her first night in Sylar's abode, away from a home that will never be hers again. She takes refuge from his surveillance in the bathroom, dawdling over her bedtime ritual.

Before the sink, Claire levels her reflection with an unwavering stare. It's time for a pep talk.

"My marriage is over," she says firmly. When her mirror image fails to shriek in horror, she continues, "It's over, and that's . . . well, it's not okay. But it's not the end of the world, either."

_The sun going out, now _that's_ the end of the world. Kissing a strange, strange man . . ._

"I can do this. I can be alone." She tries on a cheery smile and recites, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

No, that smile isn't cheery. It looks rather stoic. Reminds her of her paternal grandmother. She drops it immediately. She doesn't want to be like Angela. No. Thank. You.

"So. You listen to me, Claire Ru—Bennet. Claire _Bennet_."

It's funny, but a strength rises in her when she says the name aloud. It conjures images of a life long past. Noah Bennet. Now there was a man who knew how to save the situation, no matter how grave it got. He's no more than dust now, but she's still proud to call herself his daughter.

"That's right, Claire Bennet," she continues, squaring her shoulders. "You get your ass in there on that couch, and you have a good night's sleep. No bad dreams. And tomorrow—" The smile is a tad less false now. "Tomorrow will be a good day."

After all, today was . . . _sort_ of a good day. With the ice cream . . . and the simulated murder.

She quirks an eyebrow.

"Or something," she amends.

She _is_ playing house with Sylar, after all. Let's not push it.

[] [] []

They overlook the rather obvious bloodstain in the middle of the floor. It doesn't even seem to require a conscious effort on his part. He strolls right over it to hand her the blankets.

"If you need extra," he says, "well, you'll just have to suck it up, because I don't actually have any. I don't get many guests—go figure."

"Pretty sure these will do," she replies, taking them from him. It isn't exactly cold, anyway, as evidenced by her pajamas: a girlish, summer-appropriate tank-and-shorts set of yellow cotton. They're the same ones she wore in the hotel, being the only pair he bothered to pack. Other choices he spotted in her dresser felt out of place, either too winter-y or too . . . sexy. He turned his nose up at the skimpy ones; it was too easy to visualize her cavorting for Rutherford.

He watches her spread the blankets on the couch, clutching a pillow at his side. Those shorts really are, well, _short_. He wishes she wouldn't bend over like that. Good god, it's indecent.

She straightens and whirls back around to face him. He yanks his eyes up and clears his throat hastily.

"Pillow," he offers, holding it out.

"Great." She takes it, then stands there awkwardly. Glancing from him to the couch, she pointedly says, "Well . . . you know—sleep tight and all that."

She can't bring herself to say _Goodnight, Sylar_. It just isn't happening.

"Are you implying I have bugs?" he quips, but he can take a hint. Sticking his hands in his pockets, he retires to his room with a departing, over-the-shoulder, "Goodnight, Claire."

[] [] []

_No bad dreams, _she told herself, but at this point, she'd welcome a hair-raising nightmare if she could just drift off. Each time she clamps her eyelids together, they spring back open of their own accord. Her pupils adjust to the darkness, and the sight of the ceiling is soon stamped on her brain. The steady _tick-tock_ of the many synchronized clocks pulses in her eardrums until she imagines taking a mallet and smashing their faces one by one.

Claire knows what the problem is, and it's embarrassingly pathetic.

She desperately wants something to hug, or simply something to lie alongside her body. Like an extra pillow. Or one of her bears from around the world.

A hint of moisture wells up in her eyes.

_Gah, _no_, damn it!_ Making a face, Claire slugs her fist into the back of the couch. _Remember the pep talk!_

How long can she handle this, lying owl-eyed on a narrow couch with no contact? How long can this insomnia hold out? Maybe she should have accepted the bed when he offered it. Stuck _him_ out here and huddled in the indentation made by his heavier body. _That_ would teach him to pry bullets out of her head and feed her frozen desserts.

Claire flings back the blankets and plants her bare feet on the cool floor.

She was never good at pep talks, even as a cheerleader. Kicks and cartwheels, those were her forte.

[] [] []

Sylar opens his eyes groggily, pulled from a sound sleep by a light, repeated smack against his foot.

"Mmm—hm?"

"You don't sleep naked, do you?" comes the quiet voice from the foot of his bed.

"What?" His voice is hoarse, his eyes bleary.

"What are you wearing?" she persists, raising her voice slightly to aid his lagging comprehension.

"Um . . ." He shakes his head, befuddled. "Not much." A pair of dark blue boxers, that's it.

She emits an exasperated huff.

"But you _are_ wearing _something_, right?"

"Yeah . . . Why? You need something?"

"No," she says briskly, walking around the edge of his bed. "Just go back to sleep." And flipping up the corner of the blanket, she slips beneath it. He scoots closer to the wall to accommodate her while she makes herself comfortable.

"I thought you didn't want to sleep in my room," he reminds her. _Not that I'm complaining._

"I didn't."

"So?"

"So I'm a figment of your imagination, Sylar!" she snaps in a weary tone.

"Oh . . ." He drops his head back against the pillow thoughtfully. "That would explain it."

She stretches, the firm curve of her calf running briefly against his leg. Her skin is warm. The only sort of noticeable warmth he's used to feeling in his bed is when he rolls over into a spot he vacated moments before. Someone else's body heat feels foreign and overly conspicuous, as if his nerves are suddenly hypersensitive.

_Must be what she was missing, _he assumes astutely.

With a contented sigh, he lets his eyelids flutter shut.

[] [] []

"You snore," is the first thing that greets Sylar's ears when he awakens in the morning.

The lower half of his face feels hot. His head is turned to the side, and he realizes he's had his nose and mouth stuck in her hair. Claire noticed ten minutes ago, but she didn't bother moving, the heat of his long, even exhalations strangely peaceful. Now he pulls his face away.

"That's a lie. That's—" He yawns enormously. "—a _damn_ lie."

They're both on their backs, Claire's head resting in the crook of his shoulder, his out-slung arm passing beneath her, fingers trailing over the edge of the mattress. He takes care not to disturb this arrangement as he stretches, pushing his legs out and arching his spine so that it cracks audibly.

"You do," she insists lazily. "Not constantly. But you make up for the lulls by sounding like a damn tractor every hour or so. I kept dreaming I was back in Texas, on a hay farm."

"You're making that up."

Claire laughs.

"How can somebody live as long as you and not know they snore? You must not have had many bedmates. Guess that _Sex and Your Sanity_ book is one hell of a convincing read."

"Would you shut up about that book?" There's no real fire in the rejoinder. The lingering haze of sleep won't allow for humiliation. In fact, this is probably the most comfortable argument he's ever taken part in. "Anyway, I've probably had more than you."

"I find that doubtful."

"Why? How many have you had?"

"Some."

"_Some?_ Don't be coy, Claire Bear—scandalize me."

"How many have _you_ had?"

He draws in a long inhalation, then releases it in a pensive whoosh.

"All right, so I snore," he allows. "Any more complaints? And might I remind you that you're a guest here?"

"Guest, really . . ." she repeats, noting his brush-off. "S'pose that's Sylar-speak for _prisoner_. And, yes, actually, I do have one more."

"Namely?"

"The next time you wake up needing to pee, could you find a better way to get out of bed that just rolling over me like I'm made of feathers and fluff? I thought I was being mauled for a second."

"I forgot you were there. It was as disturbing for me as it was for you. Anyway-" Lifting the hand nearest the wall, he flicks his fingers out, and the bed scoots a couple feet to the left with a long, low grating noise, creating an easy passage on his side. "Problem fixed."

"Fabulous."

"So . . ." he begins reluctantly, "I take it this is . . . a permanent arrangement?"

"Hmm. Permanent is a strong word." Applying it in any shape or form to this situation strikes Claire as a grave mistake.

"Semi-permanent?"

"Um—quasi. I like quasi-permanent better." She supposes she has to give him _something_ if he's going to rearrange his furniture for her. Then she frowns, twisting around so that she's on her stomach, head craned back to look at him. "I mean, unless it annoys you."

It occurs to her that he may find the bed too crowded now, just as she found the little couch uncomfortably spacious on her own. Old habits.

But he shakes his head quickly, almost too vigorously.

"No," he assures her.

For a moment, they study each other. Then Sylar's face splits into a grin, and he drops his head back onto the pillow, laughing.

"What?" asks Claire.

"Oh . . . nothing," he says, raking a hand through his hair. "I've never seen you in bed before, in the morning. You look like a tornado blew you in."

Glaring, Claire sweeps her fingers over the tangled mess of her hair. Digging her elbow under his ribs to shut him up, she stretches her legs, sliding them stiffly off the mattress.

"I should get the shower first, then," she reasons.

"Be my guest."

While she's steaming up his bathroom, Sylar tugs on a tee-shirt and swipes her bag from the living room. He takes it to the bedroom and unpacks it, shoving her things unceremoniously into a couple of empty drawers in his dresser. He pauses over the final item in the bag. Glancing over his shoulder toward the door as if to ascertain she isn't looming there, watching him, he closes the bag, leaving the item inside. He tosses the bag into the depths of his little-used closet.

He meets her in the living room, where she's emerged with a towel on her head and is in the process of hunting for her bag.

"I unpacked it," he informs her, walking past on his way to the bathroom. He gestures toward the open bedroom door. "Check the bottom drawers."

[] [] []

Over the course of the week, they slip into a comfortable groove. They go out for ice cream or cake; sometimes they dine at a nice Italian place down the street. They stroll the park, and he shows her where he used to work before he cracked up (her words). Some days they just hang around the apartment building. Claire jibes him about his books and his clocks, and he cracks a blonde joke or two. He would swear they're having fun, but he never asks _Do you like it here?_

At night, they sleep together. He becomes accustomed to her presence there, and she to his, so typically it comes off without a hitch.

Typically.

One morning he wakes to find her folded in his arms, her head beneath his chin, her back molded to his front. He's heard spooning described as sweet and romantic. While the latter might be true, _sweet_ is the furthest adjective from his mind. With her bottom fitted into him like that, the instinct to move against her is so powerful it's almost overwhelming. It reminds him strongly of how he felt with Allison Crow, only Claire isn't doing it on purpose—is, of course, completely oblivious.

_All you know how to do is _violate _things_. She said that to him. But that was days ago. Besides, she didn't mean it.

Splaying his fingers, he slides his palm flat down her abdomen. Nuzzling into her hair, he presses her into him a bit more securely. Then he merely holds her there. It feels good, mostly. It feels like torture, a little.

He allows himself to caress her innocently while he inhales the scent caught in her hair. He'll drift off in a moment, he's certain—must be half-asleep even now, since otherwise he wouldn't be doing this. Her pajama top has ridden up a few inches, and the pad of his thumb dips into the shallow contour of her navel.

"Mm . . ." Claire makes a little humming noise in her throat.

He freezes as her body shifts against him. She mumbles something in her sleep. It's unintelligible, but one syllable sounds far too similar to _Rob_.

As he draws away and flips onto his other side, he jars the mattress as much as possible in order to end whatever disgusting dream she's begun courtesy of _his_ touch. When she follows him, running her toes briefly along his ankles, his shudder is accompanied by a pronounced scowl.

No fine line exists between acceptance and affection. The two can be as alien to each other as joy and sorrow. He knows that. He isn't stupid.

So he never asks, _Do you like it here?_

She's here. What more does he require?

[] [] []

It's hard for Claire to admit it even to herself, but it does a little something for her when she feels him wanting her like that. Maybe it appeals to her vanity. Maybe it's just the affirmation she needs after being abandoned. She likes to think so. But the touch of his long, masculine frame encompassing her smaller form, his hands on her skin, makes her want to wrap herself around him and savor the sensation.

That's insane, though. So she feigns sleep, twists a bit to loosen him from her. When he draws away, the loss of his heat is more than slightly regrettable, so she turns with him, cuddles against his back. The shiver that passes through him makes her imagine pressing her lips to his skin, up his spine to his neck and around his jawline. She wonders what kind of reaction she could get out of him if she ran her hand across his stomach and sucked his earlobe between her teeth, if his long fingers would clench around the sheet.

_Completely_ insane. What's _wrong _with her?

Claire needs to get out of his bed, out of his home, and stay out. This forced cohabitation is getting less involuntary by the day and far too cozy for comfort.

She's almost starting to like it.


	11. Deal

Sylar watches, absently swirling the last of the wine around in his glass, as Claire twirls the spaghetti strands onto her fork. One drops off, and the rest spill loosely as she tries to recover it. She glares down at the noodles as if they are being intentionally disobedient.

What is it about watching her eat that holds such fascination for him? He wonders. It occurs to him that he's spent the better part of his life dining alone. That's probably a leading factor.

Plus, she tends to look leagues more delicious than the food.

He wrinkles his brow in distaste. Where did _that_ come from? Averting his eyes as she takes the final bite, he focuses on finishing his wine. She places her fork on her plate.

"Do you want dessert?" he asks, setting his glass down.

Claire puts her palms out briefly.

"If I eat any more tiramisu, I won't fit through the door."

But she fits nicely in Sylar's building. And the bed. He likes having her there, a fixture more involving than even the most intricate of timepieces.

"Actually . . ." she says pensively, playing with the stem of her glass, "can we even get fat? I mean, I can't see surviving explosions and then keeling over from heart disease, you know?"

"Probably not," he guesses. "I mean, I don't jog or anything . . . and I think there was a ten year period where I ate pie every day, so . . ." He shrugs.

"Hm." Claire smiles contemplatively.

"Claire, are you lamenting the fact that you'll never be morbidly obese?"

She chuckles.

"No. It's just funny, the things we can't do, because our bodies interpret them as damage. For instance—" She tips her wine, tastes it. "We can't get drunk. You know, I've _never_ been drunk, not once in my entire life."

"It's intensely overrated." Sylar savors power, and control goes hand in hand with that. There's nothing like intoxication to shoot control all to hell.

"I just always thought I'd go out with friends on my twenty-first birthday and get hammered at some bar. Guess I saw it as a rite of passage, something dumb like that. Like prom." She raises her eyebrows, adding in retrospect, "Which I also missed, come to think of it."

"So you missed having your toes crushed to the tune of sappy, overplayed pop songs and then getting groped by some adolescent pervert in the back of a limo. Every young girl's dream."

Claire smirked.

"Is that how _your_ prom played out?"

"You mean was I groped in the back of a—"

"You _know_ what I mean, Sylar."

"No," he says, fiddling with the unused knife lying by his plate.

"So, what was it like, then? You didn't step on any toes?"

He looks up at her, and she's only half-teasing. Beneath that guise, she's really curious, sad that she missed out on the experience herself. Sylar considers making up some extravagant lie, filling her head with soft lighting, soft music, and maybe some heavy petting for good measure.

"I didn't go to prom, either," he says truthfully.

"Why?" _That's not right_, her face seems to be saying. _You had a normal life back then. I didn't even have a chance. _

How can he answer, really? He was a geek in glasses who didn't have a date or a clue. He's put a lot of work into overcoming that past.

"Damned if I remember," he replies. "Anyway, I'm sure my reason was a lot less interesting than yours."

"Mine being that I was trying to rid the world of you."

He raises his empty glass in a mock toast.

"How'd that work out, by the way?" he teases, just as their waiter arrives with the check.

"It's a work in progress," Claire retorts, sitting back with an appreciative sneer.

They leave the restaurant, and he can't stop glancing at her. She likes dressing up when they go out; he's noticed that. Now she's wearing a beautifully cut, olive-hued dress that dips just low enough in front to allow a nice view. He wants to put his arm around her shoulder just so he can brush her clavicle with his fingertips. He doesn't, of course.

He had to practically _make_ her buy the damn dress. Or, rather, let _him_ buy it. She seemed wary to have him spend any money on her, as though she stood a snowball's chance in hell of exhausting his funds. But she needed more clothes and was clearly drawn to the dress when she glimpsed it in the formal wear department. He finally snapped that if she didn't buy it like she obviously wanted to, he'd turn _her_ into gold and the store could use her as a mannequin for all he cared.

Sylar isn't the only one glancing at her. She gets a lot of admirers, but she hardly seems to notice, staring down at her feet.

"Claire," he says, stopping to hail a taxi. "What if I told you . . . I could get you drunk?"

She looks up at him, skepticism written all over her face.

"Well, I'd have to call bullshit," she says.

He shrugs.

"Forget it, then."

He lifts his hand, but Claire tugs at his sleeve, pulling his attention back to her.

"Okay, I'll bite," she says. "_How_?"

"I can slow it down," he says simply, doing his best to sound nonchalant. All he needs is for her to link this little trick with the Haitian's power. "It's something I . . . well, picked up along the way." He hastens onward. Best to gloss over the blood and gore bits; Claire isn't particularly fond of them. "We'd still have to put back quite a lot, but if we showed a little dedication, I think we could get pretty well drunk off our asses."

Sylar mastered the Haitian's ability long ago-far better, he's certain, than its original owner. And while he's never hesitant to use it when in pursuit of some delicious power, he is entirely unwilling to apply it to himself, to turn off his own abilities even temporarily. However, in the course of his experimentations, he's found it isn't necessary to feel the full effects of the power. He can also use it tweak any given ability, turn it down a notch or so, if he wishes. Which, of course, he typically doesn't, basking in the vast collectio he's acquired. But he feels like giving Claire a treat tonight.

She narrows her eyes at him, and he braces for the question, _Where'd you get that one from?_ In his mind, he's already forming a blatant lie: _Some middle-aged nobody in Arkansas—took twice as long as usual to cut through his skull. _He's willing to displease her with gory details if it helps her believe him.

But instead, she merely asks, "Have you tried it before?"

He nods.

"Once."

Once, Sylar went to a wedding, and he decided to indulge a bit, getting nicely buzzed on expensive champagne and tequila and vodka and whatever else they happened to be serving at the open bar. He wound up dancing with the bride—without her knowledge and fully against her wishes—and when she tossed the bouquet, no one caught it, because it never came down. Maybe in his slightly drunken state, he wanted her to catch on to his presence, but she didn't, because she was just too damn deliriously happy, the goddamned glowing bride in virginal white with the sun bouncing off her hair.

If he'd been _really_ drunk, he might have lost all inhibitions entirely and given into his strong desire to rip the groom out through the too-cute _Just Married_ sign painted on the back window as they drove away. But he didn't, just took a few random leftover bottles back to his hotel, got smashed in private, and woke up the next morning without even a hint of a hangover to attest to the previous day's events. And then life rolled on, uninterrupted, for thirty years.

Claire stands at his side now, contemplating his offer. Part of her can't help but think he'd be a fun drinking partner—well, _interesting _is maybe a better word. She isn't convinced he won't start regaling her with slurred tales of his horrific escapades, but . . .

"Okay," she relents.

He raises his eyebrows.

"Let's do it," she says, giving him a level stare. "I mean—if you really can."

He laughs at the subtle challenge in her voice, then takes out his wallet and hands her money for cab fare.

"Go home," he says, and when he says _home_, he means his _and_ hers. "I'll find a liquor store. Shouldn't take too long."

He sees her into a taxi, stops her from shutting up part of her dress in the door, then takes off in search of copious amounts of alcohol. This probably isn't a good idea, but she's so damned _wistful_ about these things. It seems to Sylar that, whereas he focuses on the experiences _offered _by immortality, Claire fixates on the few experiences denied by it.

_Guess I'm the optimist in this relationship._

He smiles when he enters the store, the bell overhead dinging as he pushes the door open.

_At the very least_, he concedes,_ she's probably one hell of a drinking buddy_.

[] [] []

Sylar arrives home to a truly horrifying development. Claire has uncovered his photo album. At this very moment, she's staring at a picture of Gabriel Gray's mother standing with her arm slung around her clearly uncomfortable son.

He believes this has to be, by far, the most nightmarish event to occur since Claire's arrival-and that's taking into account the bloody therapy session.

"Did you go through my _things?_" he asks accusingly as he sets his purchases down on the end table.

"Why the hell do you look like Clark Kent?" she returns plaintively, ignoring both his question and his obvious disapproval.

His mouth tightens as if she's offended him.

"That's how I looked," he says.

"Well, you looked like Clark Kent," she responds with raised brows. "In a sweater-vest. Who's that, your mom?"

He sighs and turns his back on her. There are several _clanks_ as he reaches into the bags and begins pulling bottles out.

"Mm-hm," he answers shortly, then amends, "Well—for all intents and purposes, anyway."

"What's that mean?"

"Nothing. That's my mom."

"I didn't know you had a mom . . ."

"Well, of _course_ I had a mom. What'd you think—they forgot to lock up Hell one day and I made a break for it?"

Claire laughs shortly.

"Something like that . . . So, what ever happened to her?"

"Take a guess, Claire." This conversation is making him rather grumpy. "That picture was taken years before I even met you. She's dead, obviously."

"Yeah, but I mean—"

"She-got-old-and-she-moved-to-Florida-and-she-died!" he rattles off quickly with a roll of his eyes, slamming yet another bottle down.

"Florida." Claire raises a dubious brow.

He turns to look at her, a dark glower on his face.

"_Florida_," he reiterates firmly.

"If you say so." She shrugs and begins to turn the page, but he rushes over and snatches the album away from her.

"That's enough of that," he says. He moves to put it back in the coat closet, where it's been stored away in a shoebox since he purchased the building. He makes a mental note to find a better hiding place for it. Or simply incinerate it as he should have done ages ago.

"Hey," she calls to him from the couch, where she's sprawled on her stomach with her chin in her hands, the hem of her dress riding around the bend of her legs.

"Yeah?"

"I kind of want to see you like that," she says thoughtfully.

Sylar shakes his head, confused.

"What are you talking about? Like what?"

"Like you were in the picture—all nerded up." Claire smiles widely, and it takes him aback a little. He blinks.

"No," he says nevertheless.

"Aw, come on . . ." she wheedles, momentarily sounding every bit the teenager she looks.

"_Why_, for god's sake?"

"I don't know . . ." She ponders it for a moment. "I just think it'd be interesting, seeing you from a new perspective."

He finds himself really, ridiculously considering it for a second. She looks awfully convincing, lying there on the couch with her dress dipping in front. Then, with a grimace, he catches himself and tosses his head as if to clear the nonsense out of it.

"I don't have that stuff anymore," he informs her as if to close the discussion. "That was a long time ago."

But Claire just won't take no for an answer.

"Well, you can fake it. I'm not asking for a carbon copy, just . . . Give me your best Gabriel Gray." She pulls her knees under herself and sits up. "Do it for me?"

Looking at her—looking at that _look _she's donned like a highly convincing mask—it hits him like a punch in the stomach that Claire Bennet believes she can manipulate him. He isn't sure how he feels about that.

"All right, then," he says, wishing very much to regain the upper hand here. "You want to play dress up? Go put on your cheerleading uniform."

"I don't still have that old thing," she replies, giving him a look that suggests he's mentally deranged.

"Oh, really?" he challenges, adding inwardly, _You and hubby never played that game?_

"Of course not." She's a good liar, he has to give her that.

"It's in the closet, Claire, in your suitcase. I packed it."

"_What?_" she squeaks, eyes widening. "Why would you pack that?"

"I don't know, why would you keep it?"

There's a tense moment, which he breaks.

"Anyway, that's the deal. One watchmaker for one cheerleader. _Or_—" He gestures to the bottles lined up on the table. "-we could just forget the whole thing and get straight to our six bottles of tequila. You know, like rational people."

Stroke of genius, he thinks, giving himself a mental pat on the back. _Check and mate_.

But Claire rises from the couch and walks past him, almost brushes him, and the phrase _getting up in his face_ comes to mind despite the height difference. She vanishes into the bedroom for a while, locking the door, and he can hear her rifling in the closet. He waits uneasily, busying himself with opening one of the bottles.

The lock clicks open.

"Your turn," says a voice from behind him.

His mouth drops open slightly at the sight of her. The uniform is discolored with age, but it hardly matters. Years and years and a lifetime or two since the first time he saw her, and suddenly it feels like yesterday.

"Sorry, no pom-poms," she says, _uber_-casual, strolling up to the end table to take the bottle from him. She sniffs the contents warily and makes a face.

"I—have to shave," he says, running a hand over the seemingly permanent stubble on his jaw. _Quasi_-permanent, as Claire would say.

"Why's that?" She's still peering uncertainly at the tequila.

"It really isn't Gabriel unless I shave."

So, he heads for the bathroom.


	12. Control vs Tequila Peach

It really _isn't_ a carbon copy. But it's not _too_ far off. After dragging on a sweater—no sweater vests in his wardrobe these days, thank god—shaving, and combing his hair in a humble side part, he could pass for Gabriel. Which isn't a fact he relishes. In his experience, passing for Gabriel means passing by unnoticed.

For the finishing touch, he retreats to his timepiece room and dredges up an ancient pair of prescription glasses from a drawer. They have a loose screw, which won't quite tighten. Must have been stripped at some point. But he puts them on, nevertheless, unwilling to resort to those ghastly eye loupes, which, no doubt, would send Claire into unrestrained fits of giggles.

After all, Claire is not opposed to laughing at Sylar, but he has a slight suspicion her amusement might sting a bit more if aimed at Gabriel.

_Kid's too soft_, he thinks, chuckling as he peers over the frames to take in a warped view of himself in the surface of the eye loupes. _He just can't take it. _

Never could. And that's why Sylar put him out of his misery all those years ago.

So now he's . . . back.

Good lord, how did Claire talk him into this, again?

Running his fingers reverently over the face of a grandfather clock, Sylar shuts off the lights and returns to the upstairs living room.

Claire turns at his footsteps, and her eyes rove over him. Something akin to electricity shoots up his spine, and he averts his eyes unintentionally. To cover, he squints, pulling the glasses off.

"I can't see a damn thing," he says. "I haven't needed glasses since . . ."

"Since you decapitated me?" she finishes charitably. "Actually—does it count as decapitation if only part of the head comes off?"

"Well," he muses, raising a brow, "I think that depends on whether you live to tell about it."

Claire smiles thinly.

"Then it definitely counts."

"Are we going to fight?" he asks, walking past her to scoop up a bottle. He pushes it toward her. "Or are we going to drink?"

"Both, probably," she replies. She accepts the bottle and watches him open a second one. "You're giving me my own bottle?"

"Glasses will only slow us down," he explains with a smirk, clinking the neck of his bottle against hers.

"Speaking of which . . ." Claire tugs the spectacles from his hand. He frowns as she applies pressure with her thumb, popping the lenses out. She reaches up, hooking the frames onto his ears none too delicately. He bats her hand away gently.

"Seems a little pointless, doesn't it?" he points out. Not to mention more _Clark Kent_ than ever.

"It's all in the effect. I mean—" She steps back and strikes a bit of a pose. "It's not like I plan on doing any cheers."

He half-nods in agreement, tilting the bottle up to his lips. He winces slightly at the first swallow, then points his chin at Claire. Time to get this ill-conceived show on the road. Warily, she takes a sip. Her face scrunches up as the liquid burns down her esophagus.

"Ugh!" she exclaims. "I think I like mine better in margaritas."

"Those would've slowed us down, too."

"Is it even on?"

"Hm?"

"That ability—is it on?"

"Oh." He takes another swig. Smiles. Tips her a rather un-Gabriel-esque wink. "It's on."

[] [] []

Claire is well into her second bottle when she starts doing cheers. Sylar is sprawled comfortably on the floor, his back against the couch and one knee drawn up, observing her curiously through the empty holes of Gabriel's glasses.

"Okay, and this one . . ." She wobbles a bit. "This one is one we would do when we were up against the Bears. God, they really thought they were the shit. _Hate_ those goddamn Bears."

"That's pretty good."

"I haven't done it yet."

"Oh."

Pity. Gabriel was never one for pep rallies, but Sylar thinks he could have gotten behind _Hate those goddamn Bears_. It has a nice edge to it. The rest of the cheers run together in a stream of _rahs_ and one-letter chants. Sylar would be incredibly bored if he wasn't so focused on Claire's lithe body flailing around in what would probably be a skilled fashion, were she not so liberally soaked in alcohol.

He's somewhat tipsy himself. It makes staring at her easier, as the tequila seems to have purged whatever shame might have holed up in the corners of his unconscious. Claire tries an awkward little jump-spin combo, and he's at perfect eye level to witness the way her skirt twirls up from her thighs.

The spin doesn't quite come off, and she hits the floor with a thump. The half-empty bottle she's clutching rolls away, drizzling the already blood-stained carpet.

Rather than rushing to aid the immortal girl, Sylar bursts into quiet laughter. He isn't sure why. Maybe it's Gabriel—maybe some buried, bitter part of him thoroughly enjoys seeing a beautiful cheerleader fall on her ass.

Hell, maybe he's more wasted than he thought.

"Well, it's a reaction," Claire slurs, pulling herself to her knees. "You gotta be the most lifeless crowd I ever cheered for in my life."

"That's Gabriel for you," he explains honestly, taking a drink from his own bottle before offering it to her. He supposes it's what a gentleman would do, passing the lady his liquor when she's too far gone to hold her own.

"Something tells me Gabriel Gray never made it with a cheerleader," she speculates, crawling toward him.

"No," he replies, too drunk for discretion.

"Hm," she laughs, taking the bottle. "Hey, you got any idea how many times I died in this uniform?"

He only shakes his head, because a drop of tequila has fallen onto her clavicle and keeps inching its way down to the round collar of her top.

"This one time, for instance—there was this—" Claire makes a disgusted noise in her throat. "—_complete asshole_, who _did_ want to make it with a cheerleader. He put firecrackers in the other team's mascot, blew it all to hell—"

"You mean in effigy, right?" The drop expends itself in a shiny trail before reaching her top.

"Shut up, I'm telling it."

"You're kind of a mean drunk, you know that?"

"Anyway," she presses on, ignoring him, "I thought he was _soooo_ sweet, I mean I was just about half-gone over him, you know? Prince Charming in a football jersey . . ."

Claire scoffs and, bracing on the tequila bottle, pulls herself level to his gaze. Her eyes, slightly bleary, are nonetheless blazing.

"Guess what happened."

"I thought _you_ were telling it."

"He took me out to the bleachers, tried to rape me, killed me, stripped me, and dumped my body."

Sylar's lip curls. Claire only smiles—not a pretty smile—and shoves her hand aggressively into his chest.

"Now in light of _recent events_, you give me one good goddamn reason to believe men aren't uniformly scum."

"I don't know about that," Sylar replies in a low growl. He brings his face closer to hers, cups the back of her head so she can't look away. "But if I'd known . . . Claire . . . I would've killed the bastard."

It's as true a statement as he's ever made. He only laments that the man is long gone, or he might kill him this very night. There is no statute of limitations on revenge.

"Nah," she counters. "You were too busy trying to kill _me_. One hell of a year, let me tell you . . ."

"Claire, I'm—"

"Don't say you're sorry. Just don't lie, is all I ask."

Sylar shuts his mouth.

Breaking the tension, Claire reaches up and runs her hand over the smooth comb of his hair. It looks ridiculous this way. Why would he ever style it like that, when he had such nice, thick, dark hair? _Who_ would style it like that? Just who the hell _was_ this _Gabriel_, who comported himself as if he envied wallpaper?

"Say something Gabriel would say," she commands.

He rolls his eyes.

"I don't know . . ."

"_Say_ something."

Wearily, he complies, reciting in a buzzed but steady monotone:

"Yes, ma'am, I can get you a new battery, but you see, it isn't the battery at all, it's the fact that you accidentally ran it through the washing machine and drier. Hello, mother, I brought you a new snowglobe. Yes, it _is_ beautiful. No, it wasn't too expensive. Yes, I realize it's not the same thing as a grandchild—no progress in that department. _Sorry_."

He offers the last word so insolently that Claire emits a series of shrill giggles, clamping her hand over his mouth to stop him from going any further. He reaches up to grasp her wrist, but doesn't pull her hand away.

"Oh—sorry . . ." Claire gasps. "Oh dear lord . . that's depressing."

"Thus the amusement," he grumbles against her palm.

"Huh?"

Claire releases his mouth, and Sylar takes the opportunity to push her back on her heels as he rises to his knees, gaining the high ground. The tequila bottle tips beside them, abandoned.

"Now say something Claire would say," he orders.

"I . . ?"

"Something good." He gives her a grim smile. "Come on, Claire Bear, you know me. What do I want to hear?"

Claire looks down at her knees, poised between his, and chews on her bottom lip in thought. When she meets his eyes again, he can tell it's going to be good before she even opens her mouth.

"That boy?" she begins. "The one who killed me? I tried to return the favor. Asked for a ride home and plowed his car straight into a brick wall. Bastard didn't play football for a while, I can tell you _that_ much."

His heart picks up a bit.

_That's the sexiest thing I've ever heard._

Claire's eyes widen.

"_What?_" she asks.

"Oh . . ." Well, shit. He didn't mean to say it out loud. "I didn't—"

She laughs.

"Like that, do you?" she asks. "Not very Gabriel of you."

Well, maybe not—but maybe. He was always a little unhinged.

"I didn't mean to say that." He sits back, putting a few inches between them and feeling like a fool.

What an idiotic thing to _think_, much less to actually express aloud, never mind the alcoholic influence. How can he possibly fall into bed with her after saying something like that?

But he wants to fall into bed with her.

He isn't tired.

"You're blushing," Claire snickers. _Now _that, she muses, _is Gabriel, one hundred percent. The boogeyman doesn't blush._

"So are you," he counters. "It's the tequila."

"S'that a fact?" she asks dubiously.

Claire feels bold. She's just drunk enough not to give a damn, and he looks weak, anyway—vulnerable with his deplorable side-part and glasses and the color that's risen in his face. She's never seen him weak. She wants to see more of it.

She recalls his assessment of their relationship: predator and prey. For the first time, she feels as if those roles have shifted in her favor.

"Didn't know gory car crashes turned you on," she says. "Should've guessed."

His eyes snap to her face.

"It wasn't the crash," he insists crossly.

"No?"

"It's just . . . I knew you had it in you. That's all."

"And that's sexy . . . how?"

He runs a hand over his face in discomfort. This is exactly why he doesn't do this type of thing. You say things when you drink, things you ought not vocalize. He decides to do what many drunks do—kill his booze-induced problems with more booze. His hand searches beside him for the bottle, but Claire gets it first and sets it behind her.

"Claire—" He goes forward, tries to reach around her, and suddenly her hands are at his shoulders, toppling him to the side. Aggravated, glasses slightly askew, he rights himself, his arms supporting him now that the couch is no longer at his back. His hand tries for the tequila again. He wants to hide his embarrassment with obstinance.

Claire slings a leg over him. Straddles him.

His hand stills, fingertips brushing the carpet. He's not sure what the hell is going on anymore. This is all very bizarre.

"Tell me what's so sexy about it," she requests.

No, it's not a request. He looks at her face, at her uncontrolled smirk, and he realizes she believes she's found a way to dominate. It's all because of this damn dress-up fiasco—clearly, she thinks little of Gabriel. Not surprising. Most people did, if they thought of him at all.

Sylar locks eyes with her. She's getting a kick out of his humiliated hesitation, so he reaches inside himself and kills it.

"Hearing you talk, how proud you are of what you did," he answers, "seeing your true colors . . . It's like seeing you naked. In a way."

Her smirk fades a bit at his candor, and she glances down. So does he.

This position, too, hints at her nakedness. The way her short skirt rides up around her hips with her thighs spread like that. The triangle of red underwear visible between them.

The mere fact that she's on top of him.

Claire catches him staring, and in her uninhibited state, she doesn't think twice about leaning into him, bringing her lips to the faux watchmaker's ear.

"You bring a lot of girls back to your shop?" she whispers through a smile. Kisses his earlobe the way she's wanted to do since they began sharing a bed. "You give the good-looking ones discounts? Hm? Maybe a free battery?"

He could push her away, pin her, frighten her, but he laughs softly, as if she made a joke. Which, he supposes, she did, though he doubts it's a good-natured one. Maybe he feels giddy. His head is certainly swimming a little. Because Claire is on top of him.

Kissing him.

Dropping his glasses onto the carpet, he nuzzles into her hair. It's so soft. It smells like . . . something. Her shampoo, he assumes, some kind of fruit. And the alcohol.

_Tequila peach_, he sums up inwardly.

The hand that was going for the bottle now returns to run up her thigh. He wants to kiss her and inhale her, but before he gets a chance to do either properly, her palms come up to his chest and shove him roughly down onto his back.

"Okay," he responds, laughing a bit harder, and she's laughing, too. She's so pretty when she laughs, with her cheeks all flushed like that. And the feel of her weight is so . . . right.

"You know what I think, Gabriel?"

He should make her stop calling him that. He doesn't. Maybe losing control isn't so bad, not really. Not always.

"What's that?" He lets his fingers trail under the hem of her knit top, dragging it upward to expose her smooth, tight stomach. He's going to kiss her there before this is all over. He's going to kiss her everywhere.

"Mm, I think we should've done this years ago," she finishes, putting her hands over his and looking down at where he's caressing her. Smiling, she remarks, "Lord, look at that. You'd never know I was pregnant three times."

Even through the vague haze of liquour, the non-sequitor strikes him as shockingly out of place. Sylar nearly chokes, and his hands freeze on her belly.

"S-sorry?"

"Hmm?" she murmurs, bending over him. Her eyes close as if she's about to touch her lips to his, and he wants her too—god, how he wants her to—but he just can't shake it. He catches her upper arms, and her eyes open.

"What did you say?" he insists. "Pregnant?"

"Oh—yeah. Never would take, you know? One of those immortal side effects . . . He said it was okay, he didn't want kids anyway, but . . . I don't know, can something like that ever really be okay?"

He wishes she hadn't said it. And he wishes she hadn't said _he_. He remembers the note he tossed into the fire back in Texas. The suicide note that was really a love note. The things she mumbles in her sleep from time to time.

Claire makes to kiss him again, and this time he rolls her onto her back.

"Wait, no, I just—I just—no," he stammers. Struggling to his feet, he begins to walk away, somewhat unsteadily but competently.

"Where you going?"

He hears her stand, too, and stagger. She catches a fistful of his sweater, and they both go down again, hard, Claire on her side and he on his hands and knees.

"Claire god _damn_ it!" he snaps, more furiously than he intends. He tries to crawl away.

"What happened?" she asks, her voice bewildered.

Regaining a shaky footing, Sylar looks down at her. He sees a beautiful woman at his feet—and she's been hurt recently, and she's clearly a little unstable, and he has her drunk and dressed up in a cheerleading costume.

"Take that ridiculous thing off," he says. "Go to bed."

"We were getting there," she argues, her expression belligerent. "I thought _you_ were going to take it off."

"Oh, god," he mutters. He turns, crosses the living room without tripping over his feet, and reaches the sanctuary of the bedroom. As he closes and locks the door, Claire's muffled and slightly slurred voice rings out, ripping into him.

"Are you leaving? Are you-? Well—_fine! Fine!_ Who wants you, anyway? I wish you'd crawl off somewhere and die, you impotent psycho son of a bitch!"

"Oh, god," he groans again. He tugs the sweater over his head and flings it aside. Then he musses up his hair for good measure. Gabriel's dead, and he likes him that way. Someone that easily killed didn't _deserve_ this half-assed impromptu resurrection.

Sylar collapses on the bed with his arm across his eyes.

Losing control, he remembers now that Claire and her body are locked away, is bad. Really and always.

Something smacks into the door. He thinks it might be Gabriel's frames. Something else hits with an extraordinary smash, and it's definitely one of the bottles.

It occurs to him that he should turn off the Haitian's ability. But he doesn't. Being sober has never seemed less appealing.


	13. Her Acquaintance

The first few seconds are all right. He wakes up, stretches, pushes his arm out.

Hm. Claire isn't there.

And he's still wearing pants. And shoes.

Ohhhhh . . . _shit_.

Sylar believes he may be the only man in past or present existence who ever awoke sorry to find himself without a hangover. This morning a good, skull-cracking headache might have been a welcome distraction. Alas.

He spends a couple of minutes alternately cringing and trying to convince himself he has no reason to cringe.

_It wasn't _my_ fault. I didn't ask her to crawl all over me. What am I supposed to say, _Sorry_?_ _More like _Sorry I allowed you to molest me.

Of course, he _did_ allow it. Maybe encouraged it. Maybe felt her up a little.

He cringes.

_Okay, it wasn't entirely her fault. But . . . well, it wasn't _anybody's_ fault, really. The tequila . . . People do such stupid things when they're drunk. My god, people plow into pedestrians when they're drunk. That little fiasco was _nothing_. _

Of course, he did _buy_ her the tequila for the express purpose of getting her drunk.

Cringe.

But at least no pedestrians were injured. That's something.

_Screw pedestrians._

He rises slowly, reluctantly. When his shoes hit the floor, he rolls his eyes and pushes them off with his heels. He shambles to the door, drums his fingers on it for a few moments. He doesn't want to go out there.

With a sigh, he unlocks the door and pushes it open, clearing his throat to address the issue at hand.

"Cl—_motherf—!_" He swears, shouting into the bleak silence of the living room.

Falling with his shoulder against the doorframe, Sylar turns up the bottom of his foot and sees a large, jagged piece of glass jutting out. Glancing down, he realizes the area immediately in front of the door is littered with the remains of a tossed tequila bottle.

With a small grunt of pain, he plucks the glass out and watches as a brief flow of blood soaks into his sock. Peeling it off in time to observe the skin knitting shut, he hops over the worst of the mess, leaving a small scarlet track.

"You're here a week, and I need new flooring," he calls toward the back of the couch.

Claire doesn't answer. She isn't there.

He strides over to the bathroom, and the door isn't locked. She isn't there, either.

Sylar should take the opportunity to go in, shower, delay the inevitable awkward confrontation as long as possible. He goes as far as to enter and lock the door, then pauses at the light switch, running the tip of his index finger over it. He has a sinking feeling in his stomach.

Yanking the door open, Sylar goes down the staircase, one sock on one foot and the other bloody article still clutched in his fist. He checks the kitchen, the foyer, even his room with all the timepieces.

She doesn't seem to be anywhere.

[] [] []

_I came onto him_.

Claire walks down the sidewalk, aimless step after aimless step. Her face is frozen in an expression of incredulous shame, as if she's viewing a projection of her own brazen behavior on the concrete.

_I was _serious_, too. I wasn't even messing with him. I was actually going to sleep with the demented son of a bitch. I was going to make him beg for it, and then I was going to screw him on the floor. _

Good _god_.

She doesn't consider it rude, or even ungrateful, to think of him in such terms. He _is_ demented. That much is fact. He may be fun—

_Oh, _god_, when did I start thinking he was fun?_

She may even like him . . .

_Shit, when did _that_ happen? _

. . . but the truth is, the man's brain is a mess of twisted wiring. Twisted. Frayed. Probably letting off the occasional spark . . .

And, though she sometimes allows the knowledge to settle in the very back of her mind, the man kills people. Hell, he killed _her_ once. Sort of.

_You killed people I cared about._

She said that to him once. A long, long time ago.

He came to see her. Uninvited, as always. Unwelcome.

In guise, he came to laugh at her folly, her engagement—though he wouldn't use that word. He said _mistake_, he said _impulse,_ he said _hormonal whim._ So she wanted to be a woman, wanted to play house and feel all grown up, but she was just a silly teenager, now and always, and dear god, she was _amusing_.

Then the laughter went away, and somehow they were at each other's throats, he shouting that it wasn't going to last, and why would she even _want _it to, someone like that, someone weak and pathetic, and what if it _did_ last, he'd _die_, god damn it, he'd just drop dead one day and she'd wake up to a cold, crinkled old corpse moldering away next to her, and _then_ she'd wish she had listened to—

And Claire shoved her fists into him, yelling, _How dare you talk about death to me, you bastard! You killed people! You killed people I cared about! _

He pushed his face back into hers. _The ones I _didn't_ kill died anyway. Didn't seem to need my help._

She slapped him. Repeatedly and with all the force she could muster. He took a few blows, then got sick of it and gave her a single telekinetic shove that sent her crashing into her couch, hard enough to scoot it backward a few inches.

Claire tried to get up. Flicking his fingers out, he pushed her back down onto her backside. She tried again. He responded the same way.

_I can do this all night_, he said.

_Get out! Get out!_ she screamed, fingers digging into the cushions. _I hate you! I hate everything about you! I hate your _face_, god damn it!_

She wished she had a board. Just like Noah had tried to teach her at the Canfield house. She didn't care if it was useless, she'd beat him until he was a mass of ever-healing warped appendages, until she couldn't lift and swing anymore.

Breathing roughly, he snatched up that stupid, long coat—Claire thought he was clearly under the impression it looked amazing on him—and slammed her door open, straining the hinges.

_And _don't_ you come to my wedding! _she blurted at the last second, leaping off the couch. _If I so much as _sense_ you lurking around there—_

He turned back with a sneer. _What're you going to do? _he goaded her. _Kill me?_

Claire clenched her teeth. She felt the veins in her neck standing out.

_Just don't come!_ she ground out.

_Claire Bear_, he said condescendingly, _you honestly believe that the world revolves around _you_. Do you really think I don't have anything better to do than sit around with a roomful of fat, drunk relatives and watch you trip over your dress?_

_Promise_, she insisted.

He laughed, a long, mirthless series of dark chuckles.

_Does it _mean _something to you when people promise things, Claire?_ he asked, grinning. _God, you are naïve . . . No wonder you're throwing yourself at that fool. I bet he promised you things, too._

He turned and began to fade into the darkness. Claire stomped after him, catching herself at the doorframe.

She opened her mouth again, but he stopped her.

_I won't show_, he called back over his shoulder. _I _promise_. _

Now, Claire catches herself shaking her head at his misdirection, since it falls squarely under the category of _fool me twice. _She halts in her steps, and someone jostles into her.

"Oh, excuse me," says a male voice at her side as the person steps around her.

"Sorry, I—" Claire looks up to apologize. He's already hastening onward, but she catches his eye as he's turning. Her lips part, and he seems to do a bit of a double take, looking at her curiously for a second.

_Peter_, thinks Claire. She recognizes the same young man she waved at the day she arrived in New York with Sylar. Then, he was across the street. Up close, he isn't so similar, but it's still rather striking. It's his build. Even more so, it's his eyes. They seem kind, compassionate. So earnest it's almost comical. The bangs help, too.

Seeing him—even if it isn't _him_—fills her with glee and sorrow all at once. If Peter was here, he'd save her. Not that she _needs_ saving . . . but he _would_. It's what he did. It's who he was. If Peter was here, then he would _be here,_ damn it, and she would _never_ find herself drunkenly rolling around on the floor with the man who terrorized her for years.

Of course, Sylar gets the last laugh, anyway. Yes, Peter died, no help required, and that's that.

The young man half-turns to peer at her again. He catches her staring and blinks. After a second of indecision, he sticks his hands in his pockets and approaches her.

"I'm sorry," he begins, somewhat timidly, "I feel like I know you from somewhere."

"Yeah," Claire confirms, smiling. "I think I waved to you last week. I just got here—I was getting out of a cab, and—"

He snaps his fingers, remembering.

"That's it! Hey, what was that about, anyway?"

"Um . . ." Claire laughs, embarrassed. "Sorry, it's just that you reminded me of someone I used to know."

_I always loved you, Peter. _

"Oh."

"Yeah." Lifting her eyebrows, she gives him a parting smile before continuing on her way. "Well—thanks for waving back."

"Hey." He falls into stride beside her. "You're not from around here, are you?"

"Oh, no. I guess it's pretty obvious."

"A little." He shrugs, and his smile is suitably lopsided. She can't help grinning back. "It's your accent, mainly."

"Texas," she says. "Is it completely atrocious?"

"No, no. It's understated, pleasant, actually. It's—it's kind of cute, to be honest."

His eyes are warm.

Claire could never tell if Peter was flirting or not, or if he was even aware it often seemed that way, and she knew that was best for the both of them. If he _was _flirting, well, what the hell was she supposed to do with that? That possibility expired the day she learned he was her uncle, leaving her with nothing but the skeleton of a school-girl crush and an enduring case of hero worship.

But this one is flirting, in his own quiet way.

"I'm Claire," she tells him. "Claire Bennet."

"Joshua Gallo. It's really nice to meet you, Claire."

She stops walking. Touches his sleeve. He looks at her in uncertain anticipation.

"Are you on your way somewhere?" she asks.

"Nowhere that can't wait."

"We should get coffee," she suggests. "I mean, I could use some."

[] [] []

Claire sits in the booth, staring across at Joshua and reminding herself every few minutes that this is not Peter Petrelli. It's rather futile, though, since Peter's memory is the only way to explain the utter comfort she feels in this man's presence. Strangers shouldn't bond this quickly. It isn't natural. Not that much in her life has ever seemed natural.

Peter always had a way of easing her mind. She forgets the fact that she tried to kill herself less than two weeks ago. She forgets her earlier shock at last night's events, the only reminder being the knit top she's still modelling along with a pair of jeans she pulled from the hamper. She forgets she'll have to go back to Sylar eventually and face the music.

She forgets Sylar. It feels nice.

"What do you think happens to us when we die, P—Joshua?"

The question pops out of her in the middle of a conversational lull, when the sunlight is streaming in the window and making her feel warm and drowsy. It isn't something she'd ask just anyone.

He looks down at his coffee, stirring it with the swizzle stick. She hopes she hasn't made him uncomfortable.

"I don't know," he says truthfully. "I guess I'd like to think we're reunited with everyone who's gone before us." He raises his soft brown eyes to hers. "People we love—who loved us."

He smiles in a sheepish way, as if he's admitting to something embarrassing. Claire's entire torso is flooded with warmth at the sight of that smile.

"I don't know, maybe that's a little—soppy, I guess," he says, shaking his bangs over his face.

"No," Claire assures him, and some of his bashfulness evaporates.

"I mean, we've all lost someone, right?"

"Someone . . ." she agrees.

She lingers over her coffee, pensive, and the last inch or so grows cold in her cup. When they rise to be on their separate ways, Joshua asks:

"Can I see you again, Claire?"

An almost rueful smile crosses her lips.

_Oh, Peter. You have no idea how many times I've asked myself that same damn thing._

"I don't think that's a good idea, Joshua." She looks at him apologetically—she truly is sorry.

"Your boyfriend." He nods, disappointed but understanding.

"Who—?" Claire blinks, startled out of her wistfulness. "Oh—oh, _no_, god—I . . . I mean, yeah . . . He wouldn't like it. He's . . ." _so far off his rocker he's floating _"jealous like that."

"Ah . . ."

"But he's not so bad, really." She doesn't know why she adds that. It sounds superfluous.

"Well." He smiles at her, anyway. Peter was endearing, always—no enmity but what was forced from him. "Still, if you ever feel like coffee and conversation, I live just a few blocks from here. You can have my number." He takes his cell phone from his inner jacket pocket, locates his number, and passes it to her with a shrug. "If you want it."

Just as it's obvious she isn't a New York native, it must be quite plain that Claire has few acquaintances here. He looks like he's extending simple friendship, if she doesn't want anything more.

Claire memorizes his number.


	14. Glue Trap

_She's coming back_, Sylar realizes once his initial upset has evaporated somewhat. Her possessions are still here. _His_ possessions are still here (with a tinge of guilt, he checks his wallet). She has nowhere to go and no way to get there. That's a cruel thought, but it's soothing.

So he showers. He dresses. He waits. He tries to pass the time working on a watch, but he's too restless, so he settles for pacing. The sound of the clocks accompanied by his own rhythmic footfalls settles him into an easy, thoughtful sort of trance.

Around this time, he gives up.

For years, he's put on a pretense of ambivalence—outwardly, of course, but the main stage for the charade was in his own head. He kept tabs on her—_stalking_ is such a harsh term—but he didn't care how she spent her endless supply of time. He propositioned her once or twice, but that was a joke, a play for power, and she knew it. She was the only person in the world of any significance to him, but he didn't need her. He raced down to Texas when she threatened to take a permanent leave, but he could go for decades without communicating with her in any form, and he was fine, just fine.

_I love you, I love you not_. Wishy-washy children's games.

_I like you, though. Whatever that's worth._

It's over. He's finished. The proof is in the brief but sharp knife of panic that cut through him when he awoke to find her gone.

He wants Claire Bennet. Has wanted her for god only knows how long. And he missed her for thirty years.

Of course, that realization is rather useless at the moment. Now that she's apparently stormed out beneath a cloud of morning-after regret, he doubts the right course to take is hiding behind the door until she returns, then pouncing on her with declarations of undying affection.

But he has to brush all this over somehow. Make it as if it never happened. Laugh it off, or—if she's game—pretend he can't remember a damn thing. Ha, well, that's intoxication for you. Told you it was overrated.

Something along those lines.

And he won't say anything, try anything. He'll just . . . keep her here. After a while, she'll just _be_ here. With him. They'll simply exist together, in their own bubble, away from the changing, dying world.

Hm. He supposes snowglobes _do_ have their beauty, after all.

At least, _he_ finds the idea appealing.

The doorbell buzzes.

Sylar straightens, and for a split second he thinks it must be Claire. But Claire would surely just let herself in.

So he opens the door, and of course it isn't Claire at all.

It's her aging bastard of a husband.

The last time Sylar saw him in the flesh was at the wedding. Of the two men, only one has undergone any significant physical deterioration, but Rutherford is still recognizable. Sylar never forgets a face—not one he detests _this_ much, anyway.

Rutherford examines the man blocking the doorway. He's taller, yes, and there's a certain quality to his face that whispers _Don't screw with me_, but all in all, he thinks Sanders' warnings were a bit over the top. The way Sanders talked, Rutherford rung the bell half-expecting this _Sylar_ to open the door, rip out a shotgun, and blow him back to Texas.

Rutherford lets his eyes wander over the man's shoulder. Claire is nowhere to be seen in the background.

"Mr. Rutherford."

Sylar steps back, and though his tone is cordial, it is far from warm.

"Please," he encourages when Rutherford hesitates. "Come in."

"I . . ." Rutherford steps over the threshold. "I take it you know why I'm here."

Sylar has turned his back, strolled ahead with his hands linked behind him. The door drifts shut unaided, and Rutherford fancies that he hears it latch.

"Claire isn't here," Sylar replies over his shoulder, then quickly adds, "at the moment."

Rutherford looks him over with dislike.

"Where is she?"

"Out. There's a sitting room upstairs. You can wait for her, if you want. I think she'll be home soon."

_You won't be here._

Rutherford pauses at the foot of the staircase, taking note of the word _home_ and all it implies. Sylar continues toward the living room, prattling onward, playing the casual, gracious host.

"I haven't seen you since the wedding. You look _so_ different." He lays a subtle emphasis on the word. "Oh, can I offer you something to drink? Tea?"

_Strychnine?_

"Coffee?"

_Bleach?_

"Or some tequila? We've got two bottles left."

_You could drink it all at once. I could make you._

"I'm afraid I don't have much of a selection."

Sylar turns to face him when they arrive in the living room, tilting his head, eyebrows raised questioningly. Rutherford shakes his head.

"Nothing, thanks," he declines. Frowning, he begins to stroll about the room, on pretense of going over the shelves. Something about Sylar's gaze makes him want to keep on the move.

"You say you were at the wedding?" Rutherford asks.

"That's right."

"I don't remember you." He doesn't bring up the fact that Sylar looks as though he would have been a child at the wedding. These days, his wife looks as though she wouldn't have been _conceived_ yet, much less legal.

"Well, it was a _long_ time ago," Sylar points out. "And I didn't stay long."

He watched them drive away. The crowd threw rose petals, and Sylar fantasized about shattering all the champagne glasses and throwing shards, sending a barrage of crystal stems straight into the groom's chest.

"Didn't care for the ambiance?"

"Something like that," he says, then acknowledges, "Not that I was invited, anyway. I left a gift, though. _I_ was polite . . . A clock, do you remember?"

Recognition lights Rutherford's lined face.

"Grandfather clock?" he asks, sticking a hand out to indicate height.

"Right," Sylar confirms. "You remember."

Rutherford nods.

"Damn thing didn't work."

"That was intentional. It was supposed to be a metaphor."

"A _metaphor_, is that so . . ." He shrugs a shoulder in clear indication of _whatever you say_. "Claire called it a piece of junk. She wanted to throw it out, but I liked it—"

"You've always shown yourself to be a man of excellent taste."

"Aha—yeah." Vague animosity is visible on Rutherford's face now. It's wonderful. "Anyway . . . I wanted to keep it, have it repaired. I took it to—oh, several people, but nobody could ever tell me just what the hell was wrong with it."

"Well, I put a lot of work into breaking it," Sylar admits, a touch of pride in his voice.

"You put a lot of work into a lot of things," remarks Rutherford, ceasing his journey about the room.

"Meaning?" One corner of his mouth quirks up, and he has to force it back down. Now they're getting to the good stuff.

"Meaning I think you've put a lot of work into Claire."

Rutherford faces him full-on and feels a rush of indignation, because the bastard has the nerve to look flattered.

"Oh—_hardly_." Sylar steps around the couch toward the other man. "I mean, when compared to how much work _you've_ put in . . . Thirty years, isn't it? My god . . ."

He raises those broad, maddening eyebrows.

"I guess your shift is finally over. Well, no one can fault you for retiring—least of all Claire. Running away like that, it was so ungrateful of her, wasn't—"

"Do you think you _know_ something about this, Mr. Sylar?" Rutherford cuts in, face coloring. "Do you think you have some sort of insight into our life?"

"Not _your_ life, no. I might have had, but it's never interested me." That's not entirely true. Rutherford's life has carried a certain weight of interest these past three decades due to Claire's entwinement. "But when you say _our_ life—you understand, obviously, that's all over and done with."

His brow furrows thoughtfully.

"That is, unless you're planning to suggest some sort of ménage a tois situation—and between you and me, I don't think Claire's going to go for it. What's her name, by the way?"

Rutherford laughs sharply and turns away, beginning to pace.

"I see she didn't waste any time filling you in on all the sordid details," he remarks, his voice hard. "Her name is Sharon."

"Hmm. I was hoping for something trashier. Candy, Trixie . . . Bambi, maybe. Something evocative."

Sylar can feel Rutherford getting worked up, angry. It's in the air, dancing along his arms and spine like an electric charge.

"Are you judging me?" the man asks bitterly. "You have no _idea_. Did you know, the day I left—that day, we'd gone out, and some cops stopped us. Thought I was some kind of _dirty old man_, wanted to see her ID. You should have seen the looks people gave us while they were passing by, while we were standing there trying to _explain_ ourselves to those idiots."

_I should have_, Sylar agrees, but he can only wish. A small, appreciative smile tugs at his lips as he imagines Rutherford blustering, embarrassed. He goes a bit further in his fantasy and adds handcuffs. Hell, why not?

"And our _private_ life, good god! Did you know that _every single time_ we—well, shit, you probably _do_ know, don't you?"

He shoots Sylar something like a leer, and clearly he's implying something, but Sylar isn't sure what.

"I got to where I couldn't stand the thought of touching her anymore," he continues.

"Ohhh . . ." Sylar says softly, comprehending. "But she can't feel pain."

"Does that matter? It was so bizarre! I barely understood how _she_ could live with it."

"Of course, you knew, going in—"

"I knew shit going in! She told me, sure, but I was a goddamn fool. I thought we'd get married, have kids . . . I didn't realize she'd _be _a kid, forever!"

"So you just . . . outgrew her, is that it? Like a child losing interest in last year's toy?"

Rutherford's face is scarlet. Sylar imagines the man's head exploding, like a cartoon thermometer. Lovely image, that.

"There's blood on my carpet," Rutherford says roughly, coming to the point.

"Mine, too. Did you notice?"

"I need to see Claire! I need her to behave like an _adult_, so that we can start the divorce proceedings—"

"Technically, your marriage is already over. Till death do us part, and all that. Consider yourself parted."

A hint of suspicion blossoms at the statement. Just what _is_ the meaning of all those stains? Rutherford looks at him closely.

"Where is she? Is she even . . . all right? I know about you—they told me you were like her. Do you know something the rest of us don't? Have you _done_ something to her?"

"Worried you'll take the fall?" Sylar guesses, smirking.

"_Where the hell is she?_" Rutherford shouts. "I want to see her! _Now_."

"Oh, no . . . No, no, no. You've seen her already. The exhibit's over, Rutherford. Closed up. Moved on to another town—a better town. You know, the old town was starting to look a little shabby—"

"You told me that she would be back, you said _wait here_—!"

"I was buying a little time," he explains, his tone changing rapidly, losing all teasing elements. It suddenly seems to Rutherford as though a chill emanates from this man. That's only a whimsy, certainly . . . but his stance is rather off-putting, nonetheless—and his _eyes_, good lord, where'd he _get_ those things?

"Time?" Rutherford snaps, nervous.

"You see, I'm not quite sure what to do with you."

Sighing, Sylar settles himself on the couch, arms sprawled along the back, staring at him.

"How do you handle pests, Rutherford?" he asks. "You must get mice, living out in the country. Do you dispose of them humanely? Inhumanely?"

"What the f—"

"My mother used those horrible glue traps." He studies the nails on his right hand. "Nothing quite like heading into the kitchen for a snack and finding a tiny, frantic animal trying to chew its own legs off . . . Kind of ruins your appetite. I started killing them. I wasn't sure how to do it at first. I beat one to death with a rolling pin. That was messy, so I drowned the next one under the faucet. But that took too long. The meat cleaver seemed like the best compromise. Decapitation—" Here he made a little to-and-fro slicing motion at his own throat. "—is quick. After a few tries, it became easy. Routine. I guess practice really does make perfect."

Rutherford stares at him as if he's grown a second, far more disgusting head.

"What about you, _Rob?_ Hypothetically, if you were a pest . . and I was me . . . how would you like me to kill you?"

Rutherford takes a step back, his mouth set in a grim line.

"I think I'll come back later."

"I think you're wrong about that."

That's it, he's had enough. Sylar—just what the hell is his first name, anyway?—can go to hell. How in god's name Claire wound up with this lunatic is beyond him, but the lunatic can keep her, for all he's concerned. He'll check into a hotel nearby, call and hang up until he catches Claire alone, and then discuss the proceedings. Once she's signed the divorce forms and is safely off his hands—once no one can ever accuse him of doing away with his wife—he'll go back to Texas, to Sharon. Let this weirdness unwind as it may.

But as it happens, he can't go _anywhere_, because he finds himself oddly immobile.

"How did you find me?" asks Sylar curiously.

Rutherford makes a small noise in his throat, struggling against these iron-clad restraints that don't really exist, _can't_ exist.

"You said they told you I was like Claire. Who are _they?_"

"What are you doing?" Rutherford responds hoarsely.

"Who are they, Rutherford? Tell me. It's time for _you_ to buy a little time."

Rutherford's eyes are wide, shiny with fear and disbelief.

"I—I . . . Sanders," he sputters. "Micah Sanders. He said Claire contacted him, asking for you—for your number."

"And he told you where I lived?"

"No . . . God, what are you _doing?_"

Sylar sits forward, dropping his forehead against his palm in exasperation. He whips his other hand out and clenches his fist, turning his knuckles white.

Rutherford screams.

"Who are _they?_" he repeats, releasing his grip. Rutherford relaxes, panting at the passage of the pain. "Sanders is one. Now, who told you where I lived?"

"His wife!" rushes Rutherford before he can hurt him again. "He told me she'd know, but then he changed his mind, he said he didn't want to mention it to her, that she wasn't in any condition for it. So I went to see her on my own. She—she wasn't—quite right. She seemed okay at first. A little shaken. But she got out this map . . . She told me, and I turned to go, and she just flipped out, grabbed onto me and started raving about a boogeyman, and someone named Matt, how he would protect her . . . I pried her off and ran out. Last I saw, a nurse was shooting her up with a sedative."

Sylar glares at him from beneath his dark, heavy brow.

"It's true, I swear to god," Rutherford insists desperately.

"I know." He sits back. "Molly . . ."

"That's her! That's her name."

"Hmph."

Sylar seems lost in thought for a moment, then stands abruptly. Rutherford flinches.

"I want to kill you. I'd _enjoy_ killing you."

So much. And it's been a while. He has a feeling killing Rutherford, of all people, would leave him breathless and almost eerily satisfied. Sort of like an unusually talented lay after a long dry spell.

But Claire would hate him for it if she ever found out. And he supposes she would, eventually.

"I do that sometimes, you know. Kill people. For instance, there was this man, a long time ago. He was so powerful. His ability was twofold, and I wanted it. Coveted it. But he was . . . well, kind of a dichotomy, I guess. He was powerful, yet completely vulnerable. He could stop me from using my powers—that was the first part of his ability—but he couldn't stop a bullet. What's the point of it all, if you can just die? People try so hard to put their mark on life, to be remembered, but I don't think they'd scramble for it if they could just . . . _be._"

_Oh, lord_, Rutherford groans inwardly, still straining against invisible bonds. Is Sylar really going to wax philosophical before murdering him?

"Oh, would you like to know what his other ability was?"

No. No, he does not.

"He could do the damnedest thing, but he had to touch you first."

Sylar approaches him, raises his hand to place it against Rutherford's forehead. Rutherford is aghast at his own helplessness, how he can't even lift his arm to knock him away.

"Like this."

_I'm going to do it_, Sylar thought darkly.

He _wants_ to do it. Mindfuck him so hard he can't think straight afterward. Strip it bare, take away anything and everything, right down the first day he laid his sorry eyes on her. Leave him with a gaping hole in his memory and the belief that he was twenty years old. He wants to do it as badly as he ever wanted to do any of the awful things he did. And, just like those awful things, it makes perfect sense.

But would she find out? Could she?

He hates himself a little for his reluctance. No one should have that sort of hold over him, and a month ago, he wouldn't have hesitated. But a month ago, he had nothing to lose. He's gotten used to her being here. To the way she throws her leg across him sometimes in the middle of the night.

He hates himself a little, yes, but he hates the thought of her leaving more. He slides his hand down from the man's forehead and grasps his chin, makes him look him in the eye.

"Now you listen to me, Rutherford," he speaks at last, his voice low and trembling slightly with the suppression of the havoc he'd like to wreak upon this frail and pathetic creature. "_You_ are _nothing_. I am the only man on earth who can call myself Claire Bennet's equal, and she is the only woman on earth who is _my_ equal. And I worked for that, and I've been waiting you out for thirty years, and if you even _dream_ of screwing this up for me, I will turn you into a _shell_ of the miserable excuse for a man that you currently are."

And Rutherford knows it's true, that he could and would. And might.

"I won't," he whispers. "I won't. Just, please—you'll never see me again."

"_She'll_ never see you again."

"She'll never see me again," he agrees hastily, searching Sylar's eyes, like dark pits, for some sort of mercy.

Sylar senses his sincerity. So he relents, stepping back.

"All right, then," he says simply, his tone suddenly lighter, as if Rutherford had _never_ been dangling on the verge of death, no sir, not in _Sylar's_ apartment. "If that's all, I have things to do. I suggest you go back to Texas. Take up your carpet. Move Sharon in. Enjoy life. Well, what's left of it."

Rutherford tries his feet, and _thank you god they're working!_

Swiveling rapidly, he dashes for the staircase.

"Not the way you came, please." Sylar's voice catches him. "There's a fire escape down to the alley. That way. That's right."

He doesn't want to risk even a slim chance of his running into Claire.

Rutherford boards the first flight back to Texas. He has as many drinks as the attendants will allow. Nervous energy bubbles inside him, anger at Sanders and his wife, at Claire, at himself. Fear and adrenaline, the urge to get up and run, hide somewhere safe. He's never going back to New York, ever.

A demon lives there.

And it seems to have a thing for his wife.


	15. Fate and How To Fight It

Claire finds him lounging in the midst of his timepieces. She can't help but think he looks oddly at ease, considering how knotted-up she feels after what transpired last night.

"Well . . . I'm back," she says awkwardly, stopping in the doorway.

"I heard you come in," he replies, focusing on prodding a minuscule screwdriver into the back of an open watch. Though he was on pins and needles waiting for her to return, he didn't rush to greet her at the sound of her entrance, and now he keeps his tone nonchalant. Seeming overeager would be a mistake. "Where did you go?"

She shrugs and steps into the room. She isn't sure she should—somehow, this room feels private, almost creepily isolated. Her footsteps sound foreign, but he doesn't seem to mind as she strolls up and peers over his shoulder.

"Just out," she says. No reason to mention coffee with any new, charming male acquaintances. "I just felt like stepping out for a while—I mean, after last night, I—"

"I don't remember a thing," he cuts in. Give her a chance. _Take it and run with it_.

Claire is quiet for a moment. She wishes she could study his face, try and locate traces of dishonesty. But he seems so relaxed. Maybe he means it.

"Yeah, me neither," she says at last, walking around the table to get a better view.

Sylar feels her lie wash over him, followed by a warm wave of relief. This is good. They can work with this. He pulls off his eye loupes and looks at her, smiling.

"I told you it was overrated," he says.

"As far as I know," she agrees. She can't quite look him in the eye, so she reaches out and brushes the watch. "Must be nice, being able to fix things so easily."

He rims the open watch delicately with his finger, missing hers by a mere centimeter.

"Sometimes it's _too_ easy," he remarks. "If you get too good at something . . . Even a hobby can become boring."

When it's all you ever do. When it's your life, your love, your reason for living. What's the point of being good at something if there's no one around to marvel at you?

"Is that why you eased up on the whole lobotomy thing?"

He considers for a moment.

"It did get a little old," he admits. "I mean, after I got all the really good ones . . ."

His eyes hold hers as he wonders if he should say it. But it's what they're both thinking.

"Yours," he admits. "Let's be honest, once you've got the ability to come back from a shot to the face, other abilities just don't hold the same spark. There's just no urgency anymore."

"Yeah, you really hit the jackpot with me," Claire says. He can tell she means it as a joke, but there's an underlying bitterness there. Whether it's directed at him or at herself—or both—he doesn't know.

"Claire, do you believe in fate?" he asks suddenly.

She looks at him, then down, away from his eyes. Pulling the watch toward her, she feigns interest in its tiny gears as she mulls over the question.

"I believe certain things are inevitable," she answers slowly.

"That's not . . . _quite_ what I meant."

"You mean _real _fate—predestination, providence, something like that?"

"Sure. I guess."

"Do you?"

"I think so. More and more these days."

"Why these days?"

He merely offers a shrug. The only answer is another question, and he can't very well reply, _Why would I want you so much if you weren't supposed to be here? _

Claire is peering at him closely, looking up at him almost secretively from beneath her brows. Part of her wants to catch something on his face, some hint of remorse.

"Does it help with the guilt?" she asks softly.

His brow furrows.

"Guilt?" he responds.

"I mean, believing you were _meant_ to do everything you did, that it was fate—does it make it go away? Make it easier to sleep at night?"

She isn't trying to jab him. She really wants to know—wants him to answer in the affirmative, if she's honest with herself. However:

"I don't have trouble sleeping, Claire. You should know."

_Didn't think so_.

Sylar's still Sylar. Just because he's let up, that doesn't mean he's repented, or even stopped fully. Hell, it just means he's not in the mood.

Claire realizes now that she made up her mind coming back from the coffee shop. There is no starting afresh here. She doesn't want to hurt him, to spite him. She'd like to be friends. But she can't stay.

In fact, Sylar _does_ believe he was truly fated to hurt one person, and that person is Claire Bennet. The years before he ever heard of her were miserable, an affair of drudgery and monotony, day after day of dim self-loathing. And then Chandra came, like providence incarnate, and everything fell into place. _He_ fell into place, a square peg fitting at long last.

He remembers his headlong pursuit of that wonderful ability, possessed by that wonderful, astounding girl. That, he believes, was his chrysalis phase. The emergence occurred when he pinned her in her home, carved into her, extracted the nectar of her life-force.

That bloody day. Beautiful day.

Of course, he could say all this to her, but he's positive she'd send his nose crashing up into his brain.

And he'd still want her here.

_You and I were born to keep each other company. _

He's glad Rutherford showed up, after all. Glad he sent him running scared. Now they can stay here, unbothered. Together.

Claire resolves to find her own apartment.

[] [] []

She seems distant that night, and he finds it grating. He understands that she still feels strange about her tequila-induced flirtations—all in all, that was a bad, _bad_ idea on his part—but they've decided to pretend it never happened. What the hell is her problem?

"I'm tired," he professes at last. And a little bored. And annoyed. "I'm going to bed. Are you—?"

"Think I might read for a while," she says. She's curled up on one end of the couch. Far away from him. Radiating iciness as even a certain long-legged, long-dead blonde could not.

Maybe it's just his imagination.

"All right," he replies with a lift of his shoulder. "Anything in particular?"

He'd even find it reassuring if she'd tease him about that damned _Sex and Your Sanity_ book again. But she doesn't. No, it isn't that. She _won't._

"Not really. Have any classics?"

"Hm-depends on your use of _classics_, I suppose." There have been plenty of new additions to the literary hall of fame over the years. He goes to the shelves and scans them, his face slightly moody.

"Anything I might have read in high school, probably with a gun to my head?"

It pops out of her mouth before she thinks, and they both wince slightly at the touchy imagery, each unseen by the other.

"Let me see . . ." he says, running his finger over the spines of the myriad books. "_Persuasion_—Austen really isn't my thing, too formulaic . . . You might like it, though."

"Anything else?"

"Well, of course, you've got your _classic_ classics. Homer's _The Iliad, Romeo and Juliet_—that's a good one."

"Not too formulaic?"

"It ends with a stabbing, Claire. You can't ask for much more than that out of a sixteenth century love story. I only read _Persuasion_ once, but I have a creeping suspicion they survived."

Claire chuckles. It makes the corner of his mouth quirk up and his shoulders ease slightly.

"I take it you're not a fan of happy endings," she remarks.

Sylar considers this for a second.

"They die," he says, glancing over at her. "They always die. The happy ending is just a cop-out, because the author knows we don't want to see the ecstatic couple careening toward death and decay. Shakespeare, at least, knew how to get around that."

"By killing them young. Leave a good-looking corpse, and all that. Yeah, that's much better."

He bristles.

"They die in each other's arms. It preserves the integrity of their love—an element all fairytales _and_ Austen strive for—while at the same time lending a note of finality. So it's rendered both perfect _and_ complete—a dual quality that fairytales and Austen fail to offer."

Claire raises an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure what you just said, but I'm positive you read it in the foreword."

He rolls his eyes and tosses her the volume of Shakespeare. It's tattered, several pages loose in the leather binding.

"The footnotes come in handy," he advises, walking away.

She flips through it, fanning the scent of old, crisp pages to her nose. It causes her eyes to drift shut and brings to mind another aroma: the subtle, masculine scent detectable when she nuzzles into his chest sometimes at night.

No use in denying it, she's going to miss that.

"What if they didn't _both_ have to die?" she asks, catching him before he vanishes into the bathroom. "I mean, in fairytales, say Cinderella was immortal. Wouldn't that make for a better love story?"

Well, a less formulaic one, anyway. _Better_ is taking it too far. She lived that situation, after all, and it didn't end in a fairytale fashion. In place of a fairy godmother, she got a serial killer. Instead of a prince . . . Wait, who is the prince in this situation?

"That's not a love story," Sylar replies, a bit coolly. "That's a tragedy."

He shuts the door behind him, and she's left staring down at the copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ in her hands.

_Isn't it both?_ she wonders.

[] [] []

He can't sleep. The clock ticks by the minutes, the hours, and Claire still hasn't come to bed. He turns this way, that way, he curls his knees up and straightens his legs. He puts his arm out, and there's a huge, cavernous space there on the mattress.

It's . . . _vexing_.

Therefore, he's wide awake and fully aware when the light in the sitting room goes out. He sees it disappear in the crack over the bedroom door.

And she still doesn't come to bed.

_Water_, he thinks at last. _I need water_.

So up he gets, and in his quest to slake his non-existent thirst, he finds her lying on the couch in the darkness.

"Claire?"

She hears him approach. Clamps her eyelids shut and tries to breath convincingly.

"_Claire._" His hand falls on her shoulder, and he's shaking her lightly. It's no use. God, he can't take a hint, can he?

"Mm-yeah," she answers, opening one eye in what she hopes is a groggy manner. "What—what is it?"

"W—" He steps off a bit, lifts his hands, looking down at her. "Why are you out here?"

Because she has a silly urge to comb his tousled hair with her fingers. Because of the way he smells. Feels. Because she came onto him last night, and _she_ remembers it even if he doesn't, and she has to get out of here, or it might happen again.

Or it _will_ happen again.

"Oh—I just figured you were asleep. Didn't want to wake you."

"I wasn't—" he begins, then shakes his head. "Since when do you care about waking me, anyway? You generally sleep like you're being tortured with a cattle prod."

But he likes the way she moves around, shifting positions. The way she starts on the edge of the mattress and invariably ends tangled up with him.

"Um . . ." Claire tries to think of a decent excuse. She can't very well say, _I'm sorry, but my husband left me, and I haven't had a decent physical relationship in months, and if you keep on cuddling up against me, I'm going to jump on you, you crazy bastard. To hell with it all, I'll do it, and I just dare you to try and shake me off. _

So she says:

"Well, I wound up sleeping here last night, and you know, this couch—it's actually pretty comfortable. I thought, hell, no point in letting it go to waste. And this way, you can have your room back again, to yourself, I mean. And, you know . . ."

She pats the cushion.

"It's nice. It's cozy. It's, um . . . cushy."

Sylar scowls, glaring down at the couch.

"I don't—" Again, he stops. _I don't _want_ my room back. _"I don't see why that's necessary. I didn't have a problem with you being there. You know that."

"I know," she says. "It's just . . ."

Claire proceeds with caution.

"Honestly, I thought I ought to get used to sleeping alone."

The statement is like an icicle being driven through his rib cage, but his only outward response is a slight tilt of the head.

"Well . . . I mean, once I move out, I'll be on my own all the time, so—"

"Once you move out?"

She sits up, fearing this might be a long one.

"Yeah," she confirms casually. "I think it's time I started looking around for my own place. Actually, I was hoping you might help me there—help me _find_ something, I mean, not, you know . . . I mean—it's . . ."

She trails off in the wake of his silence.

"I see," he says finally, his tone like gathering thunderclouds. "And how _do_ you plan on paying for it, exactly?"

"Oh, well . . . I have some money in the bank. I could use the ATM till I found a job."

"What kind of job?"

She's staring to squirm a little.

"I don't know. Anything, just—"

"_Anything_, well, that's comforting."

Just wait until her savings run out, or until Rutherford learns she's withdrawing money and gets a jump on it. She'll be working a pole.

"Sylar—"

"You realize you've been out of the work-force for thirty years, of course. And you realize you look about nineteen. Are you going to jot down fifty-year-old phone numbers on your resume? The fact that every one of your references is now _deceased_ probably isn't going to help your case."

"Well, at least I didn't kill them _personally_," she says, tone hardening. "I can get a job."

"Sure. Pull out your birth certificate, you could probably sell cosmetics."

Claire's face twists in indignation.

"You think I'm totally incapable, don't you?"

His expression is none too pleasant, either.

"I think I had to un-stick you from your carpet last Tuesday because you had a _bad day_," he snaps. "And now you're just going to throw yourself on the mercy of the city. Brilliant. Those blonde genes are really paying off. Tell me, Claire-Bear: How long, do you think, until I have to take a shovel over to your new apartment building so I can scrape you off the sidewalk?"

"Screw you, Sylar!" Claire darts up from the couch, begins to push him back, and then flinches as her palm connects with his bare chest. It's a subtle movement, but he sees her falter.

"Oh, god damn it," he mutters. "This is all because of last night, isn't it? You know, you came onto _me! _I'm the one who stopped it."

Her eyes widen, and their bodies are close enough that he can look down and see her face color even in the darkness. For a second she looks like a deer illuminated by headlights, and then outrage floods her features.

"You said you didn't remember a _thing!_"

"I was trying to be nice. Silly me, I forgot who I was dealing with."

"_Shit!_" Claire turns and stalks away, her shoulder bumping his torso. He wants to reach out and catch her arm, pull her back to him.

"I don't see any reason to be so mortified," he attempts to reason. He can still save this. He can fix it. He can fix anything. "We're _adults_, Claire. We had a little too much to drink, and . . ."

He shrugs, glancing down at the carpet, remembering how she looked looming above him, coming down for a kiss that never happened.

"It happens all the time," he continues a bit hoarsely. "People wake up with hangovers, wondering _Who the hell is that stranger next to me?_ Wondering how they got to Thailand without a passport. It happens. You and I—it wasn't even that bad, really. We didn't go through with it."

"Through with _what?_" she retorts loudly, spinning to face him. "Good lord, you can't _possibly _be crazy enough to think-!"

She steps closer, levels him with a look that screams _Read my lips. _

"_I was not going to sleep with you_." She emphasizes each word, her voice shaking with the effort it takes to actually vocalize such a ludicrous notion.

He said it once before: _It _does_ kind of tingle. _

Blood rushes up to his face, and he falls back a bit so she can't see it.

"You say that like I tried to take advantage of you somehow," he says. "And that's why you're sleeping out here on the couch, instead of . . ." He gestures pointlessly toward the bedroom door. "And that's why you've developed this—this—I don't know, _independent streak_, this ridiculous idea about moving out—"

"I _am_ moving out!" she insists. "I don't give a damn if you think it's ridiculous. And just so you know? The only reason I _ever_ crawled into bed with you is because I was having trouble sleeping by myself. Not because I couldn't stand the thought of missing out on your irresistible charm for eight hours out of the day."

Sylar's lip curls.

"_Really_. So who's going to keep you warm when you're all set up in your own little rat hole? Hm?"

"I'll get an electric blanket," she grinds out.

"Why not just take all _my _blankets? I mean, I guess you'll be taking all your things with you, the ones I paid for?"

"God damn it, you see now? I knew it—I _knew_ the instant I did something you didn't like, you'd throw that up to me!"

Sylar doesn't need her to tell him he's being petty. He doesn't care.

"_Look_." Claire breathes deeply, trying to calm herself. "You've done a lot for me these past couple of weeks. Hell, you_ saved_ me. I get that, okay? And I'm grateful for it."

Oh, yes, he can hear the _grateful_ pouring out of her mouth in torrents. He never knew _thank you_ and _screw you_ could sound so similar.

"But it's time for me to step out on my own. I'm a big girl, you know." She offers him an uneasy, insincere smile, and he can't tell whether he'd garner greater pleasure from slapping it off or kissing it off with an even greater violence.

"Fine," he replies. He needs to vent the anger bubbling in his chest before it overflows, so he proceeds spitefully: "Then you **can don't** need my help. You can find an apartment yourself and leave with whatever you brought from Texas."

As if in demonstration, he snatches his copy of _Romeo and Juliet_ from the end table. A little piece of paper flutters out of it. Claire watches it twirl to the floor, her eyes going a little too round.

They both lunge at it simultaneously, and Sylar wins, crumpling the scrap in his long fingers. He holds her at bay and opens it. Stares at it for a long moment.

"What is this?" he asks quietly. Though it's obviously a phone number.

"It's a bookmark," she replies in clear insult to his intelligence, making another swipe at it.

Sylar sends a spark up through his fingers, and the little paper bursts into flame. He holds her gaze while it burns, and when he puts it out, he can't resist sending the ashes flying at her face, the gesture a mean parody of a lover blowing a kiss.

As the dust settles, they stare daggers at each other.

Claire breaks the silence with a short, brittle laugh.

"Well," she quips, "at least I didn't dog-ear the pages."

He shakes his head ruefully.

"I should have left you in Texas," he says. "Back there with your washed-up marriage, shattered skull, and your sad little sob-letter on the mantel—"

"Oh, you read it—of course you did."

"I burned it, too."

"Why am I not surprised?"

"Too busy being _relieved_, probably. I'm sure he and Sharon would have had a nice laugh reading it in bed."

"No, you just can't stand me having any kind of control in my own . . ."

Claire trails off abruptly.

"Whose number did I burn?" Sylar asks quickly, taking advantage of her sudden silence.

"How . . . how did you know her name?" Claire asks slowly, ignoring his question.

There's a long pause. Sylar chews on his lower lip.

"You told me," he lies. "When you were stabbing me."

She shakes her head, lips pressed tight.

"I _never_ say her name. _Ever._"

He puts his hands on his hips. Realizes he's standing there in his boxers. Feels exposed. Cornered. Like he needs to murder something.

"I wish . . . I had killed him," he laments softly, turning away. "I don't see what difference it would have made now. Well, they say hindsight is twenty-twenty."

"Did you meet him? What happened?"

She sounds angry, but also frightened. Sylar laughs.

"Are you worried about him, Claire? Don't be." He stops at his bedroom door to toss her a final, resentful smirk. "I only hurt him a little."

Shutting her out, he settles uncomfortably on the bed, above the covers. He _should_ have left her in Texas.

He couldn't leave her in Texas.

_God, what was that number?_ He reaches for his phone on the nightstand, then tries vainly to remember the digits. Damn it, he burned the stupid thing too hastily, as soon as it fully hit him that she was hiding someone from him. He should have held onto it, or at least studied it a few more seconds.

Swearing under his breath, he flings the phone aside.

The door isn't locked. Sylar stares at it, waiting on her to barge in and resume the argument. But she never does.

He hopes she's gone in the morning.

He hopes she's still there.

_Fate_, honestly. He scoffs slightly. If fate exists, then it's a crazy, conniving, cackling old bitch.

Romeo and Juliet could attest to that.


	16. So Much For Snowglobes

It might be a hyperbole to call it the worst dream in the history of humanity . . . But not by much.

[] [] []

_Rutherford is back. _

_He's . . . oh, god. He's back. _

_This fact, of course, dictates that Sylar must destroy him. So he does—again, and again, and again. And each time, the bastard springs back like the villain in a horror film. Sylar's attempts on his life grow increasingly less gleeful, more teeth-grindingly frustrating, and he's wearing himself out trying to smash the man into a bloody pulp with one of the stair railings when Claire suddenly makes her presence known. _

"_Rob!" she cries. "Oh, my god, Rob . . . Look, I know you never got to read my letter—"_

_Here she shoots Sylar a scathing look._

"—_so I think you should know, this isn't your fault. I love you. If I lived forever, I'd always love you. I love too many . . ."_

_And she runs on, reciting her morbidly sappy suicide note, while Sylar, slightly breathless by this point, turns once more to Rutherford and gives him a good kick in the ribs._

"_God, will you just _die_ already?" he yells, swinging the railing up once more. _

"_I'm afraid he _can't_ die, Mr. Gray," says an accented voice from behind him._

_Sylar whirls in shock to find Chandra Suresh, in the flesh, standing there primly in the middle of the sitting room, a copy of _Activating Evolution_ grasped before him. _

_Son of a bitch, will nobody stay dead?_

_Sylar screws up his face, unsure what to do. He feels like his brain is locking up. After a second, he decides to continue beating a dead horse-or, rather, a very live Texan. _

"_Oh, yes, he can," he growls, bringing the rail down over Rutherford's head. The man's skull splits, and so does the rail, the longer portion rolling noisily beneath the couch. _

"_Oh, no, he can't," Chandra replies in a tone of implacable assurance. "You see, Gabriel—"_

"_My name is not-!" Sylar begins, brandishing a paltry four inches of oak._

"_Mr. Rutherford possesses the ability to regenerate his cells, just as our lovely Claire here—"_

"_You think I'm lovely?" Claire interjects._

_Sylar can actually _feel_ his mind cracking like the face of a clock._

"_He can't regenerate!" he shouts. "Good _god_, Dr. Suresh, _look_ at him! He's nearly sixty!"_

_But, yes, _look_ at him—Rutherford's skull is knitting back together before their eyes. _

"_It's not at all uncommon for abilities to remain dormant for years, manifesting suddenly during episodes of extreme physical stress or emotional upheaval," Chandra responds calmly, beginning to thumb through his book. "Indeed, some individuals may _never_ know their true potential. We can only speculate on what astounding abilities may have eluded their owners as well as the scientific community as a whole. It's all here in chapter eleven."_

_He extends the open book toward Sylar. A little scrap of paper flutters out of it. _

"_Oh, there it is!" exclaims Claire happily, grabbing it. "I thought he burned it."_

_Sylar turns away, head in his hands, muttering profanities and doing his utmost to retain little bits of his sanity. It feels like a losing battle. _

_When he faces the mad scene before him once more, part of it has dissipated. Chandra is gone. Disturbingly, so is Claire._

"_Where the . . ?"_

"_She left with the old man," says Rutherford, now seated comfortably on the couch._

"_Wh-?" Sylar spins to face the stairs, then Rutherford again. "She—left—she—what?"_

"_They looked happy. I think we may have seen the last of her," Rutherford sighs. "Of course, I'll have to stay here in case she comes back." He runs his hand over the couch, looking about as if he's settling in._

"_Over my dead body!" The ironic proclamation comes out rather weakly, since Sylar's still processing Claire's inexplicable elopement. _

"_Hey, come on, fella," Rutherford says jovially, standing. "I know we got off to a rocky start, but look! I brought your clock back!"_

_And he drags the hulking grandfather clock out as if from cartoon hammer space. _

"_Actually, I was hoping you might fix it for me."_

"_I can't—I don't . . . have time . . ." Sylar murmurs in disbelief. What's happening to his life? _

"_Don't kid yourself," says the other man. "Time is all we've got." _

_Sylar stares at the clock. It's a beautiful piece, and he put such painstaking work into breaking it, and now he's going to fix it, undo everything, not because he wants to but because it's all he's good for, because it's fate. _

_Gabriel Gray's fate. Hunched over a lifeless piece of machinery, the ticking accompanied by the sound of his own dying heart._

"_Now, would you look at that!" Rutherford cuts into his thoughts. _

_Sylar's head jerks up, and to his and the other man's amazement, the clock is hovering in the air, held there by an invisible force emanating from Rutherford's outstretched hand. _

"_That's another new one!" says Rutherford in pleased wonder. "And I didn't even have to kill anybody!"_

_Sylar desperately wishes for death. _

[] [] []_  
_

When he wakes up from that nonsensical piece of pure infuriation, all desire for further rest has been thoroughly annihilated. He rises from bed, tugs on a pair of draw-string pajama pants and shambles downstairs, zombie-like.

"I made coffee," Claire's sullen voice drifts from the kitchen.

Well, she's still here. For now. And apparently speaking to him.

"Fabulous," he replies without looking at her. He snags a ceramic cup from across the room, without any real aim and half-hoping it smacks into her head as it zips through the air. After pouring a cup of coffee, he takes a tentative sip and grimaces.

"This is ice cold," he grumbles.

"Well, I made it at four A.M," she admits. After their argument, when sleep was impossible.

Sylar rolls his eyes and rubs at the bridge of his nose with his free hand, while the other sears red-hot and steam begins to whirl up from the dark brown liquid.

"You look godawful," Claire observes bluntly. The bed-head he's sporting doesn't bother her—he wears it well—and there's nothing at all unpleasant about his state of shirtlessness. But he's got shadows like dark gray smudges beneath his eyes, and his entire air is one of bad-tempered fatigue.

"And a good-morning to you, too," he answers with listless sarcasm, sipping his coffee as he wanders out of the room.

Claire huffs, annoyed, before following him.

"Didn't sleep, huh?" she attempts, injecting a minor sunny quality into her tone.

"I slept fine," he lies.

"I couldn't sleep a wink," Claire persists.

"Strange, being that the couch is so cozy."

"Sylar . . ." With a weary sigh, she steps forward and clasps his arm. He turns partially, frowning at her.

"I'm trying to make up," she tells him exasperatedly.

It's not an apology—somehow, he feels he deserves one—but it mollifies him, nonetheless.

"Whatever you want," he says, facing her more fully. "I guess . . . I shouldn't have . . . burned your bookmark."

_Before I got a chance to memorize it._

"It's okay."

Because she still remembers it.

"So, whose number was it, anyway?" He affects a casual tone. Only curious.

"Just an acquaintance," Claire replies—honestly, for the most part. "Not even a friend, really."

"An acquaintance," he echoes, nodding. "What's it's name?"

"_It?_" She raises an eyebrow.

"Well, you didn't specify gender."

Is that really the reason, she wonders, or does he simply view ordinary individuals as sub-human?

"It's name is Joshua," she answers. He's not getting a last name, not even if he asks.

His eyes flicker down, settling on his coffee.

"Hmm."

There's a roiling boil developing behind his ribs, as he struggles not to bombard her with demands for a description. _How old is he? What's he look like? How does he look at _you?

Sylar chokes these and other questions back with coffee.

"It's funny," he remarks. "You're here two weeks, and you're already making friends. Me, I've been living here around fifteen years now, and you're the first soul I've had through the door."

_Good lord_, thinks Claire. _Fifteen years? Who does he talk to? Son of a bitch, who does he sleep with? _

_Well, _you_, lately,_ responds a needling internal voice.

_That's not what I _meant.

But what is she doing pondering his sexual habits in the first place? Claire kills that train of thought, slightly shamefaced. Thankfully, Sylar doesn't seem to realize he just let slip an intensely personal bit of information.

"Goes to show you popularity never really dies," he says. "Once a homecoming queen, always a homecoming queen."

Claire blinks at his flippant allusion to what was without any doubt one of the most traumatic days of her life. Sylar, oblivious, blows lightly on the surface of his coffee.

"You know, I never did get that crown." Or tiara . . . sash . . . Whatever the hell they were going to give her. Probably a big bucket of pig's blood if Jackie had her way.

Poor Jackie.

"Well, I'm sure it would have looked charming on you."

Can't he even say, _Woops, didn't mean to make a crack about that time I lopped your friend's head off? And then threw you into a wall hard enough to break your face? And then chased you around a dark auditorium? And then dropped your uncle off the top of the bleachers? Geez, it's kind of a serious matter now that I think about it?_

Something like that?

Guess not.

Since _he_ isn't being tactful, Claire decides to skip the lead-up.

"What happened with Rob?" she asks—gently, because she doesn't want tempers to start flaring up again.

An unpleasant smirk lights Sylar's face. Rutherford truly won't stay gone, will he? Just keeps worming his way back into their life.

Lives. Sylar reminds himself to use the plural tense.

"Nothing, really," he answers. "I assume he's back in Texas by now."

_Sharon's probably trying to coax him out from under the bed with a cookie. _

He laughs quietly, crushing it with another sip, but not quickly enough.

"What'd you do to him?"

"Nothing," he says again. When she still looks suspicious, he grins and reiterates: "_Nothing_. What _would_ I do to him—and why? Unless he starts manifesting latent abilities, I wouldn't look for his scalp lying around anytime soon, Claire."

"Well, what did he _want?_"

What does she want him to want, exactly? Does she hope he stumbled in bursting with apologies and renewed vows of fidelity?

"A divorce," Sylar says frankly, hoping it stings a little.

She nods. Swallows.

"Right. Well. That was sweet of him, wasn't it?"

Her voice is tight, and suddenly he regrets his abruptness. He doesn't want her to dislike _him_ for making her feel this way, despite the fact that Rutherford is the one at fault. _Don't shoot the messenger_ might be a popular adage, but when the messenger shows up with bad news, you've got to whale on _somebody._

"I scared the living hell out of him," he adds belatedly. _If that helps. _

Her eyes snap back to him.

"What? How?"

"Oh . . ." He lets the half-empty cup float out of his and, spiraling it around in the air with his index finger. "Ordinary, unexciting telekinesis."

Remembering what she said about his occasional _showing off_, he sends the cup whirling off to settle on some solid surface. But he feels better now. Wishes he could replay the entire scene for her.

"Just imagine it," he says, strolling around behind her. Boldly, he rakes his fingertips softly along her cheek, pulling her hair away from her face. Has he done this before? Did she shudder then? _Why_ did she shudder? Revulsion?

"Rutherford, floating, mired in the air as if in quicksand," he illustrates for her, speaking close to her ear. "Unable to move . . . unable to run. Which is what he wanted to do, of course. Run like a coward."

He's too near her. She should walk away, but she faces forward, visualizing it all as he wishes.

"He was so frightened . . . He practically groveled," he continues, a hint of a blissful sigh escaping his lips and tickling her earlobe. "I think he regretted his stupidity. That's a lot to regret, you know. He's probably still processing it."

There's a second, no more, when Claire reclines into him, her back hitting his front as she takes in the image. It passes.

"But . . . did you hurt him?"

"No . . ." he insists, a bit too hesitantly.

She draws away from his warmth, turning to face him at last.

"Nothing invasive," he amends under her probing stare. "He needed a little persuasion at one point. I gave him a . . . _squeeze_, that's all. Believe me, Claire Bear, he left in the same sorry condition he arrived in."

There's a small pause as she mulls it over.

"Give me your phone," she commands. "I want to call him."

"_Call him?_" he echoes incredulously, laughing. "No, that isn't happening."

"I just—I just want to hear his voice, see if he's really okay."

"What's the point? He's going to die, Claire—and probably sooner rather than later. Are you going to call him every day for the rest of his life, see if he's still kicking? Find out if he's had a stroke? If he's senile yet?"

That might not be a bad idea, come to think of it. Personally, Sylar can't _wait_ for him to knock off for good.

"Why don't you trust me, Claire?" he asks softly. "What, I kill you one measly little time, and you never forgive me for it?"

It isn't that. Not _really_. She knows him too well, that's all.

"I just want to call him," she requests once more. "Please."

Grimly, he retreats for a few minutes, returning with his phone, which he pitches to her.

"You know, I had a nightmare like this," he muses aloud while she dials her former home number. "At least, I think it was about this . . . Hm. You went away, and Rutherford _never_ did. Literally. That was the gist of it, I think. It was awful."

The line begins to ring. Sylar perks up suddenly.

"Chandra was there, too," he remembers. "Kind of pleasant, seeing him again. Too bad he didn't bring Mohinder along."

"Hush," she says absently.

Sylar lifts his eyebrows but lapses obediently into silence. He watches her face closely. After a moment, her eyes drift close, and she retracts the phone from her ear, ending the call.

"Satisfied?" he asks.

"All too," she replies, putting the phone in his palm. "_She_ answered."

"Oh." He sends the phone away to rest near the abandoned coffee cup.

Claire runs her fingers through her hair, smoothing it, trying to appear unbothered.

"Well . . . I need to, um . . ." She shakes her head to clear it. "I need to get looking for an apartment, like I said."

"What?" he says roughly.

"What?" she repeats, non-plussed.

He exhales sharply, angrily.

"You said we were making up."

"Yeah, well, that's what the fight was _about_. Just because we make up, that doesn't nullify my plans."

"I don't see why not."

"Look . . ." Claire squeezes her eyes shut for a moment and takes a steadying breath, trying to obliterate her desire to give him a good thunk in the forehead with the heel of her hand. "You're taking this too personal, okay? I'm not—"

"How can I not take it personally?" he retorts. "You've been living here, you've been sleeping in my room—"

"God, I _told _you—"

"I was _nice _to you!" He spits it out as if relaying some ghastly feat. _I swam in a sewer for you_ might be spoken in the same fashion.

"Was it that hard, Sylar?"

_Not with you_, he thinks. _That's the point, isn't it?_

"Never mind," she mutters when he doesn't respond. "Can I just finish what I started to say—_please?_"

He stares at her, waiting. Scowling.

"I'm not cutting you out of my life or anything," she explains. "I'll still be around. I mean, I'm leaving your home, not New York. You're . . ." Claire casts her eyes on the floor. "You're kind of the only . . . the only . . ."

She can't get it out. It's too pathetic. Too wrong. All the same, comprehension is visible in his eyes.

"God, this is high up on the list of low points in my life," she adds, mainly to herself. "And there have been a lot of them."

So he's the only friend she has. Well, that's not surprising. It was bound to happen one day. Still, his chest seems to swell with a burst of pressure at her admission.

Then, he remembers what their discussion is about, and that happy feeling pops like an overheated balloon.

"If you leave, I'm not speaking to you again."

The words tumble off his lips, and for a moment he wishes he could retract them. He imagines the only way he could seem more childish is if he took her to the playground, shouted _You're not my friend anymore!_ and flipped her face-first down the slide.

On top of which, it's a complete and utter lie. Even now, he's mentally sifting through the local apartment buildings, mapping out routes. If she dares to leave, he plans to follow her around like a puppy. A slightly rabid one.

Claire's mouth tightens. That's not what she expected him to say. What she _did_ expect, she isn't quite sure. Should he have been flattered? Perhaps merely pleased to discover she considered him more of a friend and less of a monster these days?

"Have it your way," she tells him, going to the staircase. "You think _I'm_ the one you're punishing? You haven't had company over in _fifteen_ _years._"

His nostrils flare. He shouldn't have told her that so idly.

Upstairs, Claire enters the bedroom for what she expects to be the last time, packing her things into the suitcase he brought from her house. She's hunched over the bed when she feels his shadow fall across her, and she glances over her shoulder to find him leaning in the doorway, watching her every motion with dark, agitated eyes.

"Don't worry," she says, "I'm only taking what came with me from Texas."

He rolls his eyes, stepping into the room.

"Oh, take it all," he says. Slipping his arm into the closet, he brings out the olive green dress she wore the last time they went out to dinner. "Does this look like something I have any use for?" He tosses it across the bed. "Anything you leave behind is just clutter."

"Thanks," she responds sarcastically. _My god, isn't he generous?_ Then her tone changes, and she lifts her eyes to his face even as she folds the dress to tuck it into her suitcase. "Really—thanks. For making Rob go home."

"Go to hell," Sylar snaps in place of _Sure thing, Claire—what are friends for?_ And he disappears, hitting the shower.

When he emerges later, she's already gone.

So much for snowglobes.


	17. It Isn't Stalking If We Say Hello

Sylar isn't _completely_ without resolve. He realizes that contacting her too quickly after cutting her off, so to speak, would show weakness on his part. So he gives it a few days.

After all, want does not equal _need_. He doesn't _need_ her. God forbid.

But it's _boring_ without her. Boring and sleepless. He hates the empty portion of the bed. He tries to tough it out, to distract himself with his hobby, but when he starts hating his timepieces, as well, he knows the charade is over.

Turns out it's not so easy to get an apartment in New York when you're unemployed. Claire dials number after number, pounds the pavement, even flirts with an overweight, cigarette-chomping landlord or two, but at the end of the week, she's still holed up in her modestly-priced hotel room, hope rapidly deteriorating.

She should have found a job first, of course, _then_ gone apartment hunting. But noooo, the instant she told _him_ her plans, it was _How dare you _this and _I'm not speaking to you_ that.

_What a goddamn baby_, she thinks, sprawled out on her bed, as she flips open her newspaper to the classifieds. _Should've just fallen into bed with him as usual, then told him I was moving out the _day _I was moving out. _

Of course, it all sounds good in retrospect. Now that he's had one too many melt-downs, and she's expending her savings in this dreadful little hotel because of it, he doesn't seem nearly so tempting. But the truth is, one kiss to the nape of her neck while they were curled up in his room, and she would have been doomed.

Thank god he never knew how simple it could have been.

Claire is staring, unseeing, at an add for an experienced copy editor for a small publishing house. Unconsciously, she lifts her hand to her neck, sweeping her hair aside, curving her fingers over her skin, imagining someone else creating the sensation.

_God, it's too early for this. I can't feel like this all day, I'll go crazy_.

So, to prevent herself from doing . . . whatever the hell she's doing . . . to prevent herself from throwing her own personal pity party, she picks up the phone.

[] [] []

_You're kind of my hero_, she told Peter. One more thing he and Joshua have in common, as it turns out.

"If you really need a job," says Joshua, "I've got a cousin who runs a café downtown. I mean, it, uh, well it ain't nothing glamorous." He laughs, nudging her in a slightly apologetic way. "But it's something. I could put in a good word for you."

Claire's eyes practically shine with gratitude.

"You'd do that?"

"Sure." He ceases his stroll and peers at her closely. "You're not in trouble, are you?"

"Oh . . . no. It's just, my. . . _boyfriend_ and me . . ." She trails off for a second.

Applying that word to _him_ still feels unspeakably wrong, and even more so because it feels all too close to being appropriate. Certainly she and Sylar were more than mere roommates these past couple of weeks. Just _what_ they were, she isn't sure, but it's what they _might_ have been that keeps her awake at night.

"We kind of called it quits," she continues, "and it's his place, so . . ."

"Out on your tail, huh?" Joshua nods sympathetically. "You got somewhere to stay?"

There's an offer in his big, brown, puppy-dog eyes. They express his innate kindness, contrasting starkly with another pair of familiar dark eyes, ones which have looked bored and mocking, even ravenous, but never kind.

Claire finds herself considering Joshua's unspoken offer.

Though she's known him but briefly, there's something about Joshua that she adores, something that isn't entirely encompassed by his resemblance to Peter. He must have his bad points—god knows _she_ has them in spades—but they can't possibly be more off-putting than a history of serial murder. He's nice. She likes him. He's the type of person she could find herself loving, if she let it go that far.

Claire smiles sweetly.

"Yeah," she answers, which is not a total lie, after all. For now she's got that claustrophobic hotel room to call home. "Just gotta find a way to pay for it."

"I'll talk to my cousin," he assures her, returning her smile.

Rob was nice, too. At one point. She _loved_ Rob.

At one point.

The only welcome Claire Bennet has for love these days is a swift middle finger.

[] [] []

Where the hell has she gone? Out on an interview? Out with Number Boy—what's his name, again, Joseph? Joshua? Some similar name, beginning with a J . . . Some male name.

Sylar hopes Mr. J gets plowed over by a taxi, maybe while crossing the road to say hello to her. If he should die—

If, _what am I saying? _He laughs.

-then he should definitely die in front of her. It would make for a nice cautionary tale, a preventative measure against future affairs.

Once upon a time, Gabriel found a stray cat in the alley outside his apartment. He started tossing it the odd scrap. By the time he set out a disposable cup filled with cream, the ragged little creature was comfortable enough to rub against his ankle. He scratched gently behind its soft, furry ears as it began to lap up the drink.

One night, there was a commotion in the alley. A mangy, ribbed wretch of a dog got hold of the cat and . . . well. All animals are hungry, he supposed. It was only natural. But Gabriel didn't feed strays after that.

It's the same principle, really. There's nothing like a good trauma to break bad habits, and Mr. J is just another stray.

J the Stray. Hm.

Still, he probably shouldn't bank on a convenient dog-mauling to rid him of Mr. J, or even that rogue taxi possibility. It's a pleasant fantasy though, and he's so deeply immersed in it that he barely hears the footsteps in the hallway, heralding Claire's return.

Things are looking up at last. She's got a job on the horizon. A shitty, caffeine-hustling job of the waitress variety, but a job, nonetheless. Next up, her own place.

Noah would be proud.

When the telephone on the dresser goes off in a rapid series of cricket-like beeps, Claire flinches. Is someone calling from the front desk? Is something wrong?

"Uh—hello?"

"Claire," greets a smooth, familiar voice. "Hello."

She sighs.

"Well, if it isn't Dr. Lecter," she says, smirking. "I haven't made it to hell yet, sorry to disappoint you. I'll send you a postcard as soon as I get there. I'm sure if I tell them I know you, I'll get some kind of discount."

"No, you're in room—what is it again? 12B?"

Claire goes silent, and the smirk drops off her face.

"Wait a minute, where are you?" she asks warily.

"Why do you ask?" he responds innocently.

She hangs up immediately. Stomps over to her door, flings it open, and launches her fist at the one immediately opposite her room.

"Open up, you bastard!" she grinds out through her teeth, pounding on the door.

The knob turns, and it opens inward. Claire's fist nearly collides with a paunchy gut.

"The hell?" says man in a faded red tee-shirt. Who has long, unkempt, grayish-brown hair. And a beard. And who may be one of any number of people, but who is by no means Sylar. "What's your damn problem, girl, you got a trick paid you in counterfeit?"

Claire steps back, blinking, face hot.

"I didn't—I'm sorry," she stammers, too stunned to fully comprehend he just called her a whore. "I thought you were . . ."

"Christ's sake . . ." he mutters, beginning to retreat into his room once more.

A door to the left clicks open.

"Is this lady bothering you, sir?" calls a vaguely sardonic voice, and Claire pivots to find him leaning out of the room two doors down, peering at the stranger with mock concern.

"Goddamn right she's bothering me," he grumbles without looking at Sylar and, with that, slams the door closed.

Under her glare, he bites his lip, the smugness so thick on his face it must be about to crack.

"Accosting strangers, Claire?" he asks, shaking his head. An idea strikes, and he lifts his eyebrows. "Have you considered a career as a bouncer? Or perhaps some sort of debt collector . . ."

Shoving past him, she strides into his room, halts in the center, and spins to face him.

"What is this?" she snaps. "What, are you _stalking_ me now?"

"Claire, Claire . . ." he sighs, shutting the door. "Clearly, you never read the handbook. It isn't stalking if we say hello."

"Like _hell_ it isn't!"

He shrugs.

"You know, this is _my _city, not yours," he points out. "I live here. You, you're a country girl at heart. Technically, you're on _my_ turf."

"Oh, I see, so you just _happen _to be right down the hall from me." Also, good god, does he really believe he owns the city?

"I like to get out of the house every now and then."

"Wow, never realized cheesy hotels five miles away from home were such popular vacation spots."

Laughing appreciatively, he strolls past her, hands in his pockets. She wants to slug the arrogance off his face. Make him _eat _it.

"Oh, can I offer you something to drink?" he asks suddenly, opening the small, brown refrigerator in the corner and peering into it. "You probably can't afford the mini-bar in your room. Don't worry, it's on me."

"Why the hell are you _here_, Sylar?" she demands.

He straightens, closing the refrigerator. Thoughtfully, he seats himself at the foot of the bed, crossing one leg over the other. After a moment's pause, he answers nonchalantly:

"There was nothing good on TV. It occurred to me that watching you fail would probably be more entertaining than the average stale sitcom."

It stings a little. It nettles more.

"Sylar . . ." Claire shakes her head bitterly. "You don't even _own_ a TV."

"Hm." He nods. "That would explain it, then."

"Okay." She straightens her shoulders. "Fine. You want to see me fail?"

"Like you wouldn't believe."

Claire crosses the small room slowly, stopping just before his knees. She doesn't exactly tower over him, even when he's seated, so she only has to bend slightly to bring them nearly nose-to-nose.

Sylar automatically looks down at her mouth. It curls up at the edges. Not a good sign.

"Then you'll have to come down to The Chocolate Chipped Mug on West St. Joan Street to do it," she says happily, smile broadening. "I've got a job there."

_Hopefully_.

If not, she'll have to kill herself all over again. Maybe if she takes a cruise, bails overboard, and blows her brains out in the middle of the Atlantic, it'll take this time. But no . . . he'll probably be there, observing, ready to retaliate by sending hundreds of innocents into shark-infested waters. Then, no doubt, he'll haul her back up, wring her out, revive her, and tell her it was all her fault, but oh well, at least they finally have the deck to themselves, and he makes a great margarita, would she like one?

Damn it. He always shows up to ruin her best suicide scenarios.

"A coffee shop?" His voice holds a sneer, but his face has gone devoid of all previous satisfaction.

"That's right."

"Not exactly glamorous, is it?"

"Well, I wouldn't expect it to appeal to King Midas the Unemployed, but I'm pretty thrilled about it."

"Sure." He stands, his mouth almost brushing hers in the motion. Claire pulls back sharply but stands her ground. "It's called desperation."

"It's called independence," she counters.

"Relying on a troupe of caffeine-addicts to shuffle in jonesing for mochas and espressos?" He scoffs. "Whatever you say . . . Though I admit, I do find it a little offensive you'd rather waste hours out of every day doing that, when I was giving you complimentary room and board. Says something about my company, I suppose."

"Says something about my upbringing," Claire retorts. "Where I come from, they teach us to leave _before_ we overstay our welcome."

Of course, when Sylar's involved, _Leave them wanting more _goes hand in hand with _Get out while your legs still work. _

"My, my, how _refined_ we are," he says sarcastically. "Almost made me forget you _really_ left because of a drunken grope you initiated."

She bares her teeth, seeming to hiss at him.

"That was your fault," she snaps.

"Was not," he says confidently.

"Well, you're the one who keeps bringing it up, anyway," sneers Claire. Because he embarrassed her, and he deserves it, she leans in slightly and conspiratorially asks, "You got a crush on me or something?"

The blush that steals onto his face is the highlight of what's been a surprisingly good day.

He feels it, his cheeks hot, and he hates her for being right. Without her compliance, this fixation—this _crush_, as she so understatedly terms it—is ruining him. It doesn't help that there seems to be a direct correlation with the clean desire for her companionship and the barely repressed urge to simply throw her down on the bed and strip her. The result being that with every step she takes to assert herself as something other than his new best pal, his physical frustration climbs right along with his indignation.

Sylar doesn't like feeling this way. Dirty. So much for the rabid puppy act. This is all a little more sick, with him trailing after her like a mongrel sniffing around a well-formed bitch, panting for her to do him a favor and come into estrus, pretty please.

He couldn't be more pathetic if he tried. Or even if he was _Gabriel_, for god's sake.

The worst part of it is, he knows he'll never get her out of his system. If he ever gets what he wants—and god damn it, he better, he only has _forever_—he'll only want it again, each fulfillment prompting the next hunger. Like a drug, each fix ensuring the need for another.

_Maybe not_, he thinks hopefully. Maybe all lovers feel that way in the beginning. He never got far enough to find out with the other ones. They had a tendency to drop dead when things started getting serious.

Lovers. God. Does she know?

_She can't know. _

"Oh, dear lord, you've found me out," he expresses dramatically. "What was it?"

He steps closer, lifting his hand to cup her cheek as his eyes, bright with eager sarcasm, bore into hers.

"Did you run across my book of love poems? My collection of all that hair you never bother to pick out of your brush?" His face goes slightly pained, and his voice drops to a whisper. "Not the shrine in the basement!"

Claire plants her palm in his chest and shoves him back sharply.

"You're an asshole," she mutters.

He smiles, pleased, tension evaporating inside him.

"What happened to your genteel Southern upbringing, Scarlet?" he asks.

"Scarlet O'Hara was a complete bitch," she retorts with a smirk.

"True," he allows, "although I'm going to assume _your_ summation of the character is based on the movie, rather than the actual—"

"Yeah, that's right, Sylar!" Claire snaps loudly. "You've worked your way through the entire Library of Congress, and I've worked mine through twelve issues of _Cosmo_ a year! Goddamn _dorkiest _serial killer who ever existed, that's you."

He appears slightly affronted.

"At least I'm not a ditzy cheerleader," he shoots back.

Claire snorts.

"I haven't been a cheerleader for one mother of a long time—why can't you get over it? And for that matter, why even want a roommate like me in the first place? Wouldn't I clash with your decorating? I mean, if I'm so _ditzy_?"

"Oh, well, maybe because _I haven't had company over in fifteen years_," he replies, throwing her own words back at her.

"That's not my fault!" she tells him firmly, and suddenly they're staring at each other with angry, tight faces again. How the hell does this always happen? "I can't be your _babysitter_, Sylar, no matter how much you _clearly_ need one. Why not try going out, huh? Meeting new people and all that?"

Listening, he puts his hands on his hips, stance angry.

"You want me to make _friends?_" he asks, face sour and voice dripping disdain. "_Fuck._"

Claire laughs shortly.

"_That's_ your response?" she asks. "I say _meet new people_ and you drop the F-bomb? Oh, yeah, spending eternity with you would be a real hoot."

"I never said _eternity_—and by the way? It _is_ your fault!" he contradicts suddenly, voice rising. "You went and married that—that—"

He flings his hand around, searching for the proper obscenity, but there just isn't one strong enough to describe Rutherford, so he proceeds:

"—like a complete _imbecile_, so there you were in Texas, stuck there dragging around this big, rotting _anchor_ of a husband—"

"I've got news for you," she cuts in, "_Rob_ isn't what stopped me from popping in for coffee and chit-chat. It's just that, see, I already _had _a friend who took me out scalping, so maybe if you could've found something _else_ to bring to the table—"

"Oh, _admit_ it, Claire, you were so busy trying to make hideous little babies with that jackass you wouldn't have noticed—_or cared—_if I'd walked around systematically slaughtering your entire neighborhood! You forgot I even existed for thirty years—and you really ought to thank me for making it so goddamned convenient for you."

"Lord, where are my manners? _Thank you_, Sylar, for being so charitable as to not walk around systematically slaughtering my neighbors." Suddenly, she crosses her arms over her chest and takes a step back, her face darkening. "Also . . . You know, you're kind of a prick, mentioning babies. You did that on purpose."

Her voice wavers a little, but no pity rises in him, only bile.

"Maybe you don't understand, Claire," he says in a tone of slow, gentle explanation. "Babies, you see, are a lot like their furry counterparts—puppies and kittens, you _are_ familiar with _those_, yes? All right, well you see, they don't stay little and cute forever. They actually get bigger and older. _Older_. They _age_, Claire. And whatever adorable mutts you might have spawned with Rutherford—they would have grown up and eventually died, though probably not before disowning Mom for making them look ancient in public."

He raises an eyebrow.

"Your body did you a favor, Claire. Repaired the damage, just like always, only this time it was smart enough to do it in advance."

"You bastard," she says in a low voice. "You sick son of a bitch."

Her eyes are drilling into him with hate, draining some of his anger, so he lowers his gaze to the maroon carpet.

"I'm not saying it was pleasant," he acknowledges quietly. "Just that it was for the best. That's all."

He sort of wants to say he's sorry, so he says:

"I'm sorry if you can't see that."

Which really isn't the same thing.

"No . . ." Claire shakes her head. "_I'm_ the one who's sorry."

He looks up at her, and she approaches him, arms still crossed, face still flushed with wrathful anguish. She stops when they're almost touching, and he wants to tell her to close her eyes so he can kiss away the wetness on her lashes, murmur a _decent_ apology against her cheekbone.

She reaches up and takes his face in her hand, her fingers curving under his jaw and the pad of her thumb resting in the valley beneath his mouth. Without thinking, he curls his fingers over her wrist, his thumb running over her knuckles.

"How could I expect you to understand what it was like, having a life in me," she asks, "when you've always been content to carry death around inside you?"

His fingers contract almost imperceptibly, his only outward reaction.

"I am sorry," she reiterates. "For _you_. Because for all your books and those abilities that mean so much to you, there's a lot in this world that you're never going to understand."

She draws away. He lowers his hand slowly, otherwise immobile.

"Not that you care," she adds. "But it would bother some people."

She reaches the doorknob and turns to leave.

"When do you start work?" he inquires, his voice husky.

His obstinacy astounds and dismays her.

"Doesn't really matter, does it?" she responds, opening the door. "I'll be expecting you. Oh, and Sylar? Next time you say you're never going to speak to me again . . . Try to follow through, okay?"

Claire checks out of the hotel—to further insult him, he thinks.

So he leaves, too. Finds a cab and tells the driver to tag along behind the one that just passed. This time, he doesn't follow her into her new hotel. Just watches as she takes her bag in, then tells the driver to take him past The Chocolate Chipped Mug, where he'll be seeing her next.


	18. Kay and the Case of the Cups

Claire gets the job, for one very simple reason:

Joshua begs shamelessly, like a child imploring Mom and Dad to pull into the driveway with the _Free Puppies_ sign out front. Frank Gallo, proprietor of The Chocolate Chipped Mug, is understandably reluctant.

"You expect me to hire this girl just because you like her?" asks the older, rather more portly cousin in a highly skeptical tone.

"I don't _like_ her—she's a friend," insists Joshua. "And why not? You've got an opening. Didn't Cindy go to California with that spec script she's always talking about?"

"Never mind. If you didn't have a thing for this _Claire_, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Since when do I send you out recruiting baristas for me, huh?"

"Look . . ." Joshua sighs, defeated, puffing his bangs back from his forehead. "Okay, I like her. And she just broke up with her boyfriend, and she _needs_ this, Frank—"

"So you're gonna rush in and sweep her off her dainty little tootsies," the other man sums up, nodding. "Got it. You know what your problem is, Josh? You like _everybody_."

"So what's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong is I don't know anything _about_ this girl. Is she a felon?" He shrugs exaggeratedly. "_I _don't know."

"Jeez, Frank, she's like nineteen!"

"She's _like_ nineteen?" Frank repeats, quirking a bushy brow. "Just how the hell old is this girl, Josh?"

Joshua shrugs, uncomfortable.

"I don't . . . I mean, I didn't ask, so . . ."

Frank sighs harshly.

"Jailbait, to boot! That the kind of tail you're chasing these days, Joshie boy?"

"Don't talk about her like that," he reprimands curtly. Frank finds it telling that Joshua immediately defends the woman, rather than himself.

"Shit, she's not even here." He pulls out a rag and begins wiping down the counter. Tidiness, orderliness, is important to Frank.

"That doesn't—"

"Besides, it's the truth, and you know it. Fine, hell, you know what? Bring her in. I'll interview her. Can't hurt. Then, when you've got her good and rescued—that is, when you've got in her pants—"

"_Hey._"

"I'll fire her to make room for the next teary-eyed damsel you run across. You have a history, Josh. The minute—"

"That's not—"

"_The minute_ she doesn't need saving anymore, you're gonna get bored and start hunting around for your next mission, and I'll be good and goddamned if it isn't wearing a skirt. It's all you do, ever since Kay-"

"_Stop it!_"

An odd thing happens when he speaks. The little paper doilies stacked near the cash register lift as if on a high wind, fluttering madly about Frank. Startled, swats at them with his rag.

Then it's over, the doilies settling to the floor like confetti at a New Year's party for giants.

There's a long, perplexingly _strange_ moment of silence, and neither of them knows why he isn't speaking, only that something bizarre is going on, an energy building in the air like humidity on the hottest of summer days.

Joshua feels the energy _pop_, and god, it's an unsettling sensation. Like having a balloon explode directly before him with an unnatural lack of noise.

No . . . no, it's more like _being_ the balloon. Or the rapidly released air inside of it.

Yes, he seems to rush outside himself in all directions, then come back together in a dizzying rush. Exhaling sharply, he blinks, taking in the state of the room with wide-eyed shock.

"Frank . . . where did all the cups go?"

"Huh?" Frank seems dazed, then turns to look behind him. The ceramic cups and mugs that hang so neatly along the wall behind the counter are conspicuously absent.

"What the hell . . ?" He drops the cloth he's holding. "What—what _happened?_ I thought—weren't they just here?"

Joshua runs his palms over his own body, as if to ascertain his own solidity.

"I think . . ." he begins.

"Shit, Sean _knows_ where the cups go!" Frank rants half-heartedly. "It's that art school—kid's got his head so far up his own—"

"It wasn't Sean," Joshua says quietly. "It was me."

"Huh?"

"They were here, and then they just . . . weren't. I think it was me."

Joshua's cousin stares at him as if he's gone mad. Which is a definite possibility.

"What, you think you _vanished_ my cups? Like Houdini or something?"

"I think so." He nods. "Yes."

The two men simply look at each other. Frank purses his lips and seems to be considering calling up the men in white coats.

"_O_-kay!" Frank says at last, walking around the counter and putting his arm around Joshua's back. He turns him around and gives him a light shove toward the door. "You go home, Joshie boy, and sleep off whatever it is you've snorted, drunk, or injected. Then you can bring what's-her-face in for an interview. All goes well, she can start Monday. Sound good?"

"Sounds good, Frank." The younger man still seems vaguely overcome, and Frank shakes his head. Wonders if he ought to give Joshua's mother a ring and let her know her son seems to be forming a few cracks . . . or _re_forming, he should say. But he decides against it. Mrs. Gallo has enough worries, and Joshua is her angel. She does her best to overlook his fallacies.

Joshua halts at the door.

"I wish you wouldn't mention _her_, Frank," he says, back to his cousin. "I could go the rest of my life without being reminded of her. Anyway . . . not everything is about Kay."

He goes home, as Frank suggested. He stares at his own hands, mesmerized, trying to summon that energy again. He never felt anything like it.

_The cups. They just went away._

Inexplicably, he feels his signature lopsided smile start to form on his face.

_What if I'd made _Frank _go away? What happens then? _

The smile dies, and he drops his hands to his lap. This is dangerous. Whatever this is . . . he doesn't want it.

_Yeah, I do._

_No_. No, he doesn't.

_I could use it to help. I could vanish all the evil in the world. The bad people. It's what _she_ wanted me to do. _

_I could be a hero. Hers._

Whose? Kay's? Claire's?

Claire. He needs to call her.

_I could save somebody. Or destroy somebody._

He reaches for the telephone, and the notepad where he's scribbled the number of Claire's latest hotel room.

_Sometimes_, Joshua believes, _it's the same thing. _


	19. Tantrum

Sylar leaves home Monday in a mood as black as hell's underbelly.

He had a dream about her last night. This time around, it was a good one. Well. That's an understatement. She was back in his bed; let's leave it at that.

Then, of course, as it tends to happen, he woke up right in the middle of the glorious proceedings, to the grating rediscovery that she _wasn't_ in his bed, and she probably isn't _going _to be anytime soon, because she absolutely _despises_ him. So _there_.

He slammed his palm against the mattress, body still reacting to the vivid fantasy and under the apparent assumption that all was going down as planned.

_Quasi-permanent_, she said. Shit.

Why couldn't he have shut his mouth, god damn it? Why bring up babies, tease her with the one thing she wants and can't have?

He's afraid he's beginning to understand how that feels.

Well, screw it. Fine. She despises him, so what? He despises her right back. Sort of. Of course, if she'd just come home, that would all go away, but conditional hatred still counts, technically.

So when he sets out for The Chocolate Chipped Mug, he isn't sure what his intentions are. Scope out the place, perhaps. See if maybe it has some faulty, frayed wiring hooked up to the percolators. If maybe it wouldn't be all too shocking if the place just burst into one giant inferno one of these days . . .

Or he might just have a coffee.

[] [] []

The café . . . it's cheery. Oh, god, it's _sickening._ Little tables scattered all over the place, a few overstuffed chairs set off in nooks, and a general air of peace and happiness. The scent is like heaven, all brewing coffee and baked goods.

Sylar hates it as he has hated few locations in his life. That room in Primatech where they put a shunt in his head and The Chocolate Chipped Mug, that about does it. As **if **to punctuate, there goes Claire, bustling past with an oversized, steaming cup, and she doesn't look nearly as miserable as he had hoped.

Well, that's where _he _comes in. He settles at a table near the center, where Claire seems to be gravitating the most.

In fact, Claire isn't miserable at all. The morning, admittedly, was a little rocky, but now she feels she's settling in. Frank seems pleased with her. The other barista on shift, Sean, seems pleasant enough. Overall, she thinks she quite likes it here. She can't wait to thank Joshua again. He promised to drop by at some point during her first day.

Then she sees him: Sylar, seated in her station, dressed as always as if he just came from a funeral, with an expression that suggests he'd like to cause one. Briefly, she considers asking Sean to take this one.

_No_. _That's what he _wants. _To make me uncomfortable, to ruin this for me so I'll come crawling back begging for a place to stay. _

Claire sighs, then sets her face into a pleasant smile. Tucking back a tendril of hair that has fallen loose from the blond bun at the back of her head, she starts toward him.

_Not likely, Sylar._

"What can I get for you today?"

She asks as if he's just another customer, or possibly a favored one, rather than someone she'd like to boot off the edge of the Grand Canyon. He stares at her for a long moment, and her only response is to raise her eyebrows questioningly, smile still in place.

""I don't know . . ." Sylar shakes his head, his tone one of subdued petulance. "Coffee. Black."

"That all?"

"Yep," he responds tightly, as the bell over the door _dings _lightly, announcing a new customer.

"We have a batch of muffins fresh out of the oven. Peach—awfully tempting . . ."

"If you don't bring me the damn coffee, I'm reporting you to the manager of this rat-infested hellhole," he says in a monotone.

"Coffee it is. Decaf?"

"Mm-hm."

She walks away. No, he thinks she's _sashaying_. Either she's in a ludicrously happy mood, or she's trying to wrangle as many tips as possible from the male clientele.

Tapping his fingers on the table, he glances around and decides that most of these men look like sexual deviants. Even the roly-poly old man nestled there in the corner, grasping hands with his roly-poly old wife, has an air of perversion hanging over his gleaming scalp.

Damn it, how long does it take to get a simple, no-nonsense coffee?

His eyes seek her out again, and his lip curls.

At the counter, she's been engaged in conversation by some scrawny, long-banged idiot. He looks familiar somehow.

Sylar's nostrils flare.

_Peter_. The man looks like Peter.

_That's who she was waving at_, he realizes, flashing back to their arrival, to her cryptic explanation. _Has to be_.

It explains a lot. The number. The job, for all he knows. The easy, genuine smile she bestows on him, the way she lets him touch her arm in that _casual_ way.

Son. Of. A. _Bitch!_

God, how he hated Peter. Not Claire, though, no, she _worshiped_ the imbecile. She would have done anything for him, and thank god he wasn't shameless enough to ask, because he probably had a whole list of things he wanted Claire to do for him. To him.

_Petrellis_. If they weren't trying to screw you over, they were just flat-out trying to screw you.

And now here he is back again, here for her to worship—well, in appearance, anyway. A near-carbon copy of her very own personal hero. Lovely to see you, Fake Peter.

_Well, well, J the Stray. You look like a dead man in more ways than one. _

Oh, how Sylar wants to murder him. Or at least put a fork in his happy little face.

Joshua slips behind the counter and disappears into the back, confirming Sylar's suspicions about Claire's means of employment. He watches him go, and where Claire sees her beloved uncle, all he sees is a wrench in his plans. As if he needs another one.

"Here you go." Claire is back. She sets his coffee down before him with a clink. "Don't guess you've changed your mind about having one of those muffins?"

He refuses to dignify that. This facade she's put up exudes spite. By speaking to him this way, she is ignoring him.

"So," he says frostily, running his finger around the rim of the steaming mug. "That's the bedwarmer."

"Excuse me?"

"That boy. The one who was groping you."

"Right. Enjoy your coffee." She turns to leave.

"I'm not going to tolerate another Rutherford, Claire."

She stops mid-sashay at the sound of the low, ominous words. When she turns back to him, her expression is cold, that service-with-a-smile persona shot to hell.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

As if she doesn't know.

Without looking at her, he lifts one hand as if to say _Who knows?_ and sips his coffee. She steps closer.

"What does that _mean?_"

"I'm not leaving you a tip, by the way. And I could turn this cup into gold if I wanted to, so you should take it personally."

"Are you . . . are you _threatening_ me?"

"No. Not _you_."

There's a pause.

"Get out," she says shakily.

"I'm having my coffee. Speaking of which, I changed my mind. I want regular instead." He sets the mug down and gives it a gentle nudge in her direction.

"_Get out._"

"I like it here." He runs his hands over the Formica, inspecting it. "I think this'll be my table from now on."

_I'm coming back, you bitch. Every goddamn day._

Bending down, she puts her hands flat on the tabletop, bringing her face level with his.

"If you don't leave right now," she threatens in a whisper, "I'm going into the back and telling Frank you grabbed my ass."

Pointless bluff, since Sylar would just as soon leave wearing Frank's scalp like a stylish hat. But he looks up at her with something like a snarl.

"And _I'll_ tell Frank you said if I waited till your break, we could go out back and I could do whatever I wanted with your ass for fifty bucks."

He'd swear he can actually hear his skin _sizzle_ when the coffee hits his face.

Sylar's rough cry of pain is involuntary, as is the motion that sends him tripping backwards over his chair with a clatter. But when he gets to one knee, swiping the coffee from his eyes with one arm, he feels like applauding his own performance, because the other customers seem very taken with the show. Every single person present turns shocked eyes to the center of the shop, as a general murmur of confusion and outrage breaks out.

Claire caps it off with her expression of horrified guilt, staring down at the emptied mug as though it were a smoking gun.

"What's wrong?" A middle-aged, slightly heavyset man hastens over. He stares down at Sylar, and his eyes go round, swiveling to focus on Claire. "What the hell happened?"

_Frank_, realizes Sylar. _And right on cue. _

"I—I—" stammers Claire.

"What _happened?_" Sylar echoes angrily, standing. He gestures at her. "This woman is completely _insane_, that's what happened!"

Frank's brows draw together.

"No, he was—" Claire begins dazedly. "He was threatening me . . ."

Sylar scoffs.

"How? _Are you single_, is that a threat these days? Good god, how sensitive _are_ you?"

"I saw her!" calls a woman in a rather righteous tone. "She was walking away, and then she went back—and she just picked up the coffee and threw it in his face!"

Who is that woman? Sylar wants to send her flowers.

"Is that true?" Franks snaps.

"That's _not_ . . . the whole truth," Claire returns, her blood-red face condemning her. "He came in _on purpose_, he—This is what he wanted!"

Then, another voice joins the fray, as Joshua strides out from the back.

"Hey, Frank, what's going on?"

"I have a lot of money," Sylar informs Frank quickly. "I might sue."

Frank's eyebrows shoot up, and he holds out his palm in a placating manner.

"Sir, that's not necessary. Listen, I apologize for whatever—"

"I think consumers have a right to know what kind of service they can expect here," he hastens onward, driving whatever stakes he can get hold of into Claire's new career, before Joshua can assess the situation and ruin it. "Crazy, coffee-hurling baristas—"

"No, no." Frank holds up one finger and points it toward Claire. "She's gone, trust me."

"_What?_" Claire asks miserably. "Frank, please, just—"

"No, I gave you a chance—_against_ my better judgment-!" Here, Frank shoots Joshua a critical look. "And it didn't work out. Sorry, Bennet, this is just too much for a first day."

The man turns his back on her with an air of finality in order to deliver some more first-class bootlicking to his assaulted customer. Sylar doesn't even hear Frank's appeals. Thrilled beyond belief, he has to hide his grin under guise of dabbing his face dry. His eyes—almost feral with victory—lock with Claire's—despondent and accusing.

Then they find Joshua, and recognition finally lights the young man's face.

"Wait, wait, wait . . ." Joshua looks Sylar up and down, as if sizing him up.

Laughable. Although Sylar is kind of itching for a throwdown with this idiot. There's nothing more he'd love than watching him try to crawl away without kneecaps. Besides, an agonized scream or two would greatly improve The Chocolate Chipped Mug's atmosphere.

"Claire . . ." Joshua steps up protectively, putting a hand on her arm. Again. Sylar stares at that hand, head tilted, as Frank gabs on endlessly. Joshua lowers his voice, but his whispered words are still audible: "Isn't that your ex?"

Claire's lips part, and then she sees Sylar's face.

"It doesn't matter," she says softly, brushing his fingers away. When Joshua continues to peer at her in puzzlement, she looks at him apologetically and says, "Thanks for trying to help me, Joshua. Just—just . . . don't. Anymore."

Pushing past him, she heads for the exit. The little bell _dings_ again, and Sylar turns automatically at the sound-_Show's over-_leaving Frank to stand bewildered and concerned at the sudden departure. The last thing he hears in the cafe is the sound of Joshua turning on the proprietor, demanding answers.

Out on the sidewalk, he zeroes in on Claire's retreating form and shoves rudely past a throng of pedestrians to fall into stride with her.

"Well, that was a complete fiasco," he points out obviously. Happily.

Claire shakes her head bitterly.

"You're really proud of yourself, aren't you?" she asks.

He smirks.

"Hardly. You were twice as convincing as I was. Bravo, by the way."

_I'd like to break his goddamn face_, thinks Claire, and then she glances down at the mug she's still holding. _Why am I not doing that? _

She puts all her weight into it, but he's too tall. The mug catches him in the jaw, instead of crunching beautifully against his nose the way she wanted it to. Sylar rips it out of her hand before she can rebound, tossing it casually into the road, where it shatters, a tire pops, and someone begins cursing fluently.

Claire's face is twisted in anger. Taking her wrists, he pulls her into an alley.

"Talk to me, Claire," he says roughly, shoving her back and blocking her exit. "I think we can work this out."

"_Work it out?_" she shrieks. "You just got me fired!"

"I only did it—" he **begins** with a roll of his eyes.

"What?" she **cuts** in. "Out of _love?_ You crazy-! I should have known—_god_, I should **have** known the instant I woke up in the trunk of your car, you'd _never_ save me if you didn't expect something in return!"

"That's not true," he **claims.**

"_Yes, it is._ You brought me back here to _entertain_ you, for god's sake! You're too goddamn cheap to buy a television, so you thought you could just _install_ me in your home, and I'd be there, something to watch when you didn't have any lobotomies to perform-!"

"Okay, first off!" He **holds** up a hand to stop her. "I am not cheap."

"Yeah, you're so rich, you can just buy anything, can't you?" she **replies**, voice trembling with adrenaline. "Well, you can't buy me, Sylar."

"I never wanted to."

"You wanted me to be helpless. What other reason could there be?"

"No, I just wanted you to be . . . _there_," he says honestly. "Claire . . ."

He looks at her, mouth tight in agitation, and she looks at him, eyes still full of rage but waiting, and he's on the verge of telling her . . . things. Foolishly.

And then Joshua is there, catching himself at the opening of the alley, twisting this opportune moment into just one more hideous episode in a seemingly endless farce.

"Claire?" Joshua sounds out of breath, as if he chased her from The Chocolate Chipped Mug.

Claire blinks, startled.

"Joshua?"

"What _is_ this?" Joshua asks, tone clarifying that he's speaking to the back of Sylar's head. "Hey! You!"

In response, Sylar wraps his fingers hard around Claire's shoulder and jerks her closer.

"_Get rid of him_," he orders through clenched teeth.

"You can't just harass her like this!" Joshua continues, idiotically. "I won't let you."

"You were right, Claire," Sylar breathes beside her ear. "About death, how I carry it around inside me. And if he comes over here, I'm going to spring a goddamn leak."

"_Don't_," she begs. "I'll never forgive you, I swear."

"You never did, anyway."

"I was getting there. You're making it _really_, _really _difficult, but I _was_."

There's a small pause as he mulls over this assertion. Surprisingly, it seems to be the truth. At the same time, that earnestness on her features is all for the man behind him.

So he's conflicted.

As Joshua nears the couple, he can feel that energy mounting again. Strange, yet not entirely displeasing, that it seems to be involuntary. He'll have to study it, learn what situations or emotions are required to summon it. Because he wants it badly, that power. To be a hero.

He studies Sylar's back, stopping a foot from him. Slowly, Sylar turns to face him.

"You have no possible way of understanding what I could do to you," Sylar states evenly. "Go away _now_, and I won't. For Claire."

She sidesteps, peeks out from behind him. She nods emphatically, mouthing _Go away, just go away. _Joshua ignores her. Sylar is wrong, he thinks; it's the other way around.

"_You're_ the one who's going away," he contradicts maddeningly and shakes his head, floppy bangs swinging to and fro. "You don't deserve her."

Sylar's eyes flash.

"That's true," he agrees calmly. Glances down and raises an eyebrow. "What are you doing with your hands?"

Joshua has lifted his hands loosely, elbows bent, in much the same stance Sylar has seen in paintings of Christ's ascension. He looks down, notices for the first time, realizes he's holding the power inside him, that he _can_ control it, because it's simply another functional part of him.

As soon as he's distracted, Sylar lunges, thrusting his arm out and telekinetically _ripping_ Joshua over the scant ground separating them; the toes of the other man's shoes scrape noisily across the asphalt. There's a muffled gasp as Joshua's face smacks into Sylar's open palm, and then he's threading his fingers painfully into the man's silly goddamn bangs, twisting them out of sheer vindictiveness, as he presses the heel of his hand over Joshua's eyes.

The energy pending inside Joshua dissipates with shock and with the extremely disorienting flickering that begins behind his eyelids, as if a film projector has burst into action inside his skull.

A scuffle ensues. Claire screams, pouncing on Sylar's outstretched arm and vainly attempting to pry his fingers loose, while Joshua reaches up and grapples with each of them, momentarily incapable of distinguishing friend from foe.

Sylar wishes she wouldn't defend the bastard. It only makes him hang on harder.

"Now, look," he growls to Joshua, to Claire, to whatever fates there may be. "You made me lose my temper."

Joshua groans, and his hands fall away from Claire's.

Sylar releases him, breathing roughly, shoving him back so that he knocks his head against the ground as he falls like a rag doll. Claire immediately hastens to him, and Sylar has to clench his fists to keep from finishing the job with his trusty index finger, better than any whetted butcher's knife. Doesn't she know he just did her a favor, leaving J the Stray woefully alive when he wanted to put him down once and for all?

Joshua writhes slightly.

"Joshua?" Claire prompts waveringly. Sylar steps up and peers down into the man's face, observing his own handiwork. "Joshua? _Joshua Gallo._ Can you hear me?"

Her eyes, accusing, dart to Sylar.

"What did you do to him?"

"Kay . . ?"

The quiet word captures their attention, and they both stare down into Joshua's blinking eyes, Claire with a rapt worry and Sylar with a suddenly detached, almost clinical curiosity.

"What is it?" Claire encourages.

"Kay, is that . . . God, I dreamed you died." His eyes focus, widening. "You _did_ die. That son of a bitch . . ."

Joshua seems to become aware of his surroundings, exhaling sharply, his body twitching in a motion reminiscent of a hypnic jerk. Claire flinches, and Sylar steps back politely to give him room.

"What happened?" he demands hoarsely, pushing away with his heels. "Who are you people?"

"Joshua, it's me. It's Claire. Listen, just lie still for a—"

"I don't know you . . ." Joshua replies to Claire's consternation. "I don't . . . I don't."

He repeats it, staggering to his feet, where he weaves for a moment before struggling away. As he reaches the alley entrance, he tosses back a final look of frightened bewilderment. Sylar lifts a hand and flutters his fingers in farewell.

Claire remains in her kneeling position at his feet. When she lifts her face, he finds it hard to read, to sort out the mess of emotions written there.

Disgust. He anticipated that. Sorrow—sure. Disappointment—okay, unexpected, but what the hell?

It's the horror that stings. She hasn't been truly afraid of him in so long.

This is why he never wanted her to know. But now he knows, it was bound to come out, eventually. He couldn't keep it in forever, not with all the temptations that keep turning up just _begging_ for a brain wipe.

"You took the Haitian's ability," she states bluntly, rising to her feet. "That's—that's how, that night—and you . . ."

She looks after Joshua, who has disappeared around the corner.

"He's fine," Sylar says, voice surly. "I didn't hurt him."

"Didn't _hurt_ him?" Claire repeats, snapping her eyes back to Sylar. "You don't think screwing with someone's mind like that hurts? I've _seen_ it—and it _does!_"

His face twitches as he tries to come up with a soothing response.

"All right, fine!" he acknowledges hastily. "But I know what you're afraid of, and I'm telling you right now, Claire, you can just forget it. I would never hurt _you_."

This resolution doesn't exactly put her at ease.

"What are you _talking_ about?" she nearly shouts at him. "You used to hurt me _all the time!_ It's how we _met_, for god's sake—it's why you're here right now! Every hour you live is a result of you hurting me!"

He parts his lips to protest, but she isn't finished.

"God, Sylar! No wonder you're okay with living like this—every single day is a new reality for you!" She points down the sidewalk in the direction Joshua left. "And I'm supposed to believe you wouldn't do that to _me?_ Why? Because _you_ believe it? What're you gonna believe tomorrow?"

Claire steps back, throws up her hands.

"I'm done. I am _finished_, Sylar. Give it another fifty years, maybe I'll feel like nodding if I see you somewhere, but I don't want you near me."

She turns and starts to leave him. For good.

"No!" he says harshly, lurching forward to grab her wrist. He jerks her back around to face him a bit more roughly than he intends. It doesn't help matters. "Listen—fine, yes, okay? I did hurt you. I did. That's—" He makes a dismissive gesture in the air with his free hand. "That's just a given. But that's not the same thing."

She gives him a look of deep revulsion.

"No, it's not!" he insists, and it doesn't please him to hear the underlying frantic quality in his tone. "What you're talking about is manipulation—memory theft, Allison Crow's power—there's a _reason_ I didn't take her power, you know—"

"Who the _hell_—?"

"—and it's because I don't want you like that! I want you—I mean, I don't _want_ you, that's not—"

He's just scaring her off, as if he needed to do that more thoroughly. Shit. _Shit_.

"Look, I had a chance to take an ability once, and I didn't." He looks hard into her eyes, willing her to trust him. "If I had, I could have used it on you, and you would've wanted to stay with me, to never, ever leave. I could have _kept_ you like a pet or a slave, but I don't _want_ that, because it doesn't _do anything for me, god damn it!_"

His voice rises to a shout near the end; he can't help it. He can see that her eyes aren't softening in the least, and hot frustration flares out of him. He releases her arm, practically flinging it back at her.

"_What's the matter with you?_" he nearly screams. Her only response is to whirl around and begin to walk away from him at a very clipped pace. He follows her, livid.

"Where are you going, you bitch?" he seethes alongside her, but she won't dignify him with a glance. "Back to your hotel room? Hm? Back to Texas, back to your goddamn dying _dick_ of a husband?"

He lashes out, slamming the heel of his hand into the wall. A little piece of brick crumbles off. He could dismantle these buildings if he wanted to.

He wants to.

"Do you really think you can just _leave?_ Do you think you can just brush me off like I'm nothing? You're acting like you don't even know who I am."

He whips his arm around, and the dumpster behind them overturns noisily, bending upon itself as easily as aluminum foil.

"Look at me."

She won't.

They emerge from the alley, and he starts crashing parked cars into each other as he strides along beside her, crumpling fenders. He isn't sure if he's doing it because he wants her attention or because he needs so badly to destroy something. If it's the former reason, then it's perfectly fruitless. All around them, people react noisily, but Claire remains unmoved.

"You look at me," he commands again. "Or I swear to god I'm going to start killing people."

He resorts to threats, and still nothing. She calls his bluff. And quite frankly, she's fortunate it _is_ a bluff, because he feels like snapping necks. Random people, just anybody he crosses would do. That scaffolding in the distance—he could send it crashing down in a fatal cacophony of steel bars.

"You thought you were miserable when Rutherford left? You walk out on me, I'm going to make you a thousand times more miserable than you ever dreamed you could be," he promises. "I'll cut a ditch through your life and fill it with dead people. Every friend you make, every man you touch—it'll be their blood on your head."

What is he doing? What is he saying? Why can't he _stop? _

"Angela was right." Her words are quiet, but all too audible.

"Oh, really, about what?"

"About you." She still isn't looking at him. "You're like a child, a spoiled one. If you don't get what you want, you pitch a big fit and everybody suffers for it. _My way or the highway_, as the saying goes."

"Angela Petrelli said that?"

"Yes."

"What a hypocrite! All she ever did was use people, including me—and you, and her own sons. Nobody was off-limits." He only half-cares. He just wants to keep her talking. He'll go mad if she puts up that shield of silence again.

"You're probably right," she allows without enthusiasm.

"I know I am. And so do you."

Dexterously, he sticks one of his long legs out and plants himself in her path.

"You're not really leaving," he says. Or maybe it's a question. He isn't sure.

She stares at his chest.

"It wouldn't have lasted, anyway," she states. "Forever is longer than you think, Sylar. Somehow I doubt you really thought it through before . . ."

Claire trails off, breath catching in her throat.

Cautiously, he tucks that loose bit of blond hair behind her ear. To his surprise, she grasps his hand before he can take it back.

Her eyes meet his at last. Suddenly, they seem wide, full of suppressed excitement.

"I'm coming home with you," she declares. "We need to talk."


	20. Arrangement

**I am fully aware that I went an entire month without updating, and I am filled with shame over it. SHAME. I beg your forgiveness. However, should you be kind enough to leave a comment, feel free to verbally pummel me (AGH, not the face!). **

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If he'd known _this_ would be her reaction, Sylar would have played his Haitian card the instant he saw Joshua. Or maybe just brain-wiped everyone present. He held out as long as he could, convinced her only response would be fear and a hasty flight, never dreaming it would be just the trick to get her back where he wanted her.

But here she is. He feels almost giddy, a far cry from the restless irritation that's dogged him since her departure.

If _he's_ giddy, it's nothing compared to the restless energy whipping through Claire's veins right along with her death-defying blood. After all this time, she's finally found an out. Sylar—by far one of the stranger aspects of her life—is suddenly her greatest shot at normalcy.

Not that he knows it. This will require some tact.

"I can't believe you had that ability all these years," Claire says, launching directly into the issue as soon as they're upstairs, "and I never even knew about it."

"To be fair, I probably have a lot of powers you don't know about," he reasons.

Claire takes a seat on the couch, crossing her legs on the cushion and leaning forward eagerly. Her eyes are fixed openly on his face, as if she's trying to mesmerize him. Maybe it's working; he can't look away.

"Is _that_ what you wanted to talk about?" he asks dubiously.

"I just . . . wish I'd known, that's all," she admits with a shrug.

"What difference would it have made? I mean, I always assumed you'd be completely horrified if you ever found out." He frowns. "And you _were_. So what happened? What's going on?"

Claire considers, licking her lips.

"Sit down," she suggests.

"Hm?"

"Just sit down." She scoots to the side, making room for him. "I can't get my words straight with you looming over me like that."

_Looming_. She makes it sound so threatening. He's just standing there, for god's sake. Nevertheless, he complies. Passing up a chance to sit so near her seems foolish. His arm falls along the back of the couch, and he trails his index finger surreptitiously along the bun in her hair. The little tortoise-shell clip annoys him, and he wants to pull it out, send her hair spilling around her shoulders.

"Seated," he prompts her.

Claire shifts, turning toward him. .

"I _was_ upset," she admits. "When I found out, I mean. You didn't have to do that to Joshua . . ."

His face clouds somewhat, so she hastens onward.

"But then it hit me . . . the Haitian's ability—"

"My ability now," he points out, since she insisted on bringing Joshua's name back into his home.

"Yeah—well, I was focusing on the memory aspect of it. But you can suppress abilities, too."

He nods.

"Any ability," she elaborates.

"Where are you going with this, Claire?"

She seems to turn her eyes up a notch, so that they're positively brimming with optimism.

"Even my ability."

Optimism he now must dash. Dash—stomp upon . . . set alight.

"Are you insane?" he returns, scoffing. He leans in closer, searching her face for traces of rationality, and implores in a low voice, "Tell me you aren't asking me to kill you, Claire."

The optimism dims, but isn't as thoroughly stamped out as he would like.

"No," she replies. "Not kill me . . . just let me be _normal_. That's all I want. I want to _age_, Sylar, I want to catch a cold, I want to experience that little flicker of fear when a car swerves too close, I—I want to feel like every day is important. For time to stop running together."

Sylar laughs ruefully, not the sympathetic response she hoped for.

"I see," he mocks. "You want me to perform an act contrary to your nature and watch you slowly die because of it. No, that doesn't sound like killing you at all . . . And I'd know, of course. I have so much experience in the field."

Claire glares for a second before closing still more ground between them. She gets up in his face. Looks irritatingly obstinate.

"Doesn't it appeal to you at all?" she asks quietly. "We could have a normal life." Because she can't yet bring herself to say it outright, she tacks on, "Me and you."

_I _know_ you want that. Well—part of it._

But he shakes his head.

"No, normal doesn't appeal to me. Never has and never, ever will. You know that, Claire." His brow furrows. "Although, if you think about it, this _is_ our normal. It's a hell of a lot better than the sorry hand most people are dealt, don't you think?"

Claire grits her teeth.

"I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying," she expresses slowly and deliberately. "I'm saying _me and you_. We could be normal. _Together_. The way _normal _people are when they're _together_."

_You goddamn idiot. Do I have to hammer it into your skull, right between your giant eyebrows?_

"You know . . ." Claire reaches up and runs the back of her fingers airily along his the line of his jaw.

She expects him to reach up and take her wrist, the way he did during their painful exchange in the hotel room. But he sits oddly frozen, and when she meets his gaze after a hesitant few seconds, she finds his eyes black and hard.

Blinking, she retracts her hand hastily.

"What?" she asks, inserting a faux casual note into her voice.

"Oh, nothing," he returns on the same note, though his face belies his nonchalance. "Just wondering how Noah would react if he could see his Claire Bear now. Sitting here in _my_ home. On _my_ couch. Trying to get what she wants by—hmm, how to put it . . ?" One corner of his mouth quirks up in a bitter smirk. "I know—trying to get what she wants by whoring herself out to me. I think that sums it up pretty well."

The smirk splits into a grin, while Claire's mouth twists.

"I don't know . . . I think he'd be appalled. What do _you_ think? I bet you're glad he didn't live to see this pitiful spectacle."

"I'm not—_whoring_ myself!" she snaps. "And even if I was, you're hardly one to get all righteous about it. You know goddamn well it's what you want."

His incredulous laugh isn't entirely convincing.

"I'm _sorry?_ That's what I _want, _trading death for—for—what, _favors?_ At what point during the last eighty years did I express one _iota_ of interest in such a weird, twisted arrangement? You know that's what you're talking about, by the way—an _arrangement_. Not a relationship."

"You can call it what you want," she shoots back. "But you can't sit there and pretend you never even thought about it. I mean, _first First Lady_, what was _that_ about?"

"That—that was—I wasn't serious!" he stammers, grimacing at the memory. "My god, you weren't even legal yet!"

Claire snorts.

"Your ever-present concern for legality didn't stop you from plying me with wine, feeling my face up, and sniffing my hair."

"I was high, okay?" he protests, grimacing.

"On what, Viagra?"

The look he levels on her makes clear exactly how little amusement he finds in the quip.

"On power and plans," he says. "I finally knew what I wanted, everything was coasting along smoothly, and then there _you_ were, the cherry on top. You know, if nothing else, you were always my favorite toy, Claire. And that's what I was doing. I was playing with you." He shrugs a shoulder. "That's all."

Maybe a part of him had to restrain himself from tasting the wine on her lips—_maybe_—but that was part of the entertainment, nothing more. Bullying a reaction out of her . . . Her reactions to him were always so much more interesting, so much more _genuine_ than what she gave everyone else. They made him feel special, in a different way than the one he spent his life chasing.

"Fun game," she remarks.

"For me, it was," he admits soberly.

She stares at him for a moment, taking in his deadpan honesty. Then, placing her hand on his knee for balance, she cranes upward.

Denial dies on his lips when she claims them, pressing her mouth firmly over his, and a sharp, jagged jolt ricochets down his abdomen.

It would be good for his case to pull back, or at least refrain from an obvious response. But his eyelids flutter closed, and his hand finds the underside of her chin, tipping her head back so he can kiss her harder, more deeply.

When Claire draws away, settling back onto the cushion, he takes it as an invitation and begins to follow, moving over her naturally, but she lifts a hand to his shoulder, halting him. Their eyes meet, his hazy but questioning.

"Now, are you really going to tell me," Claire whispers, "that you don't want what I'm offering? You don't want to live with me, eat with me . . . sleep with me?"

Asinine question. Of course he wants that. Of _course_ he wants to sleep with her. But it's still hard to admit it out loud. He was hoping to sort of segue into that type of relationship without ever being required to request it. Shame she ruined all that by leaving.

He supposes this conversation was bound to happen. If he denies it now, poised over her, he'll feel awfully silly when the topic comes up again in fifty years.

"No," he says huskily.

"No . . . what?" Claire asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"No, I'm not going to tell you that," he clarifies grudgingly. Drops his head and nuzzles into her collarbone, inhaling the subtle scent of her skin. "But the way you're _using_ it, like . . . _currency_ . . . It's not fair."

She laughs softly at the juvenile statement.

"Well, you may have heard, life's not fair," she tells him, but her hand drifts to the back of his head as his lips find the hollow of her throat. "Besides, I figure I owe you a little _unfair_, after all you've done to me."

Please. He can't even think about all he's done to her. Those memories have momentarily run dry under the heat of all he _wants_ to do to her.

He reaches around and pulls the clip out of her hair, tossing it over the back of the couch where it resounds with a small clatter. Then he pushes her backward, his shoulders nudging aggressively into hers as he nips at her ear.

"I'm not going to kill you, Claire," he murmurs into her temple before moving to kiss her again.

"Yeah, you are." Her soft breath dampens his lips. "You were born to kill me. Everyone else was just practice . . ."

So she _does _believe in fate. Sylar mulls that one over, dropping his forehead against hers for a second and searching her eyes.

"God, what an awful thing to say," he decides.

His mouth crashes against hers, hungrily, and when she parts her lips for him he releases a low, involuntary rumble from his throat. His hands find her legs, unfolding them, and it's when he feels her thighs slide along his hips, when the situation turns overtly sexual, that he recalls the ugly word he uttered earlier:

_Arrangement_.

Cursing harshly against her soft, supple mouth, he leaps up from the couch and from Claire, striding away on legs that feel too flimsy to support him.

"Kind of an odd time to take a walk, isn't it?" asks Claire, her breathing nearly as shallow as his.

"This isn't happening, Claire," he replies hoarsely, hating the words, hating himself for saying them and really meaning them. Hating Claire, a little, for offering up such a tempting bargain. "I'm not going to trade for you. Even if it didn't make a damn bit of difference to me if you dried up and died, I wouldn't do it. It's one step up from a pity fuck, and I don't like it."

Claire blinks, sitting up.

"What are you talking about?"

"You don't want this," he bites off, adding inwardly, _You don't want _me. "You're putting on a great big show—and you're doing quite well, by the way. I never would have expected it from you, but I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures. God knows, you must think _I'm_ desperate if you think I'm going to be content with crawling all over you while you lie back and _fake_ for me to get it over with faster."

He says all this in a rush, contempt dripping liberally from each syllable, contempt aimed mainly toward himself, because as much as he despises the idea, his body is screaming to take her up on the offer.

_God, I want to _feel _you. You're killing me._

"Well, I can get on top if it helps," Claire replies dryly. _Extraordinarily _unhelpfully.

"God damn it!" He squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on quelling that train of thought, thankful his back is turned to her. He imagines clocks, taking them apart cog by cog.

"How the hell do you _presume_ to know what I want, anyway?" Claire stands, hands on her hips. "What, did you kill Parkman, too?"

"No," he says tightly. "Thank you for reminding me." Perhaps he can pull up a chair, and she can list _all_ his failures.

"Look . . ." She sighs. She's going to have to say it. "Just because I'm asking you for something, that doesn't mean I wouldn't _like _to."

"But if I don't _agree_ to what you're so delicately suggesting, then—"

"Well, yeah, but—" She laughs. "That's just because I'm a manipulative bitch."

He turns to face her, a sour expression intensifying his strong features. Claire rolls her eyes.

"So I'm trying to wrangle a little something extra out of it," she acknowledges. "So what? Like you don't have any ulterior motives . . . I mean, why do you want _me?_ Be honest—is it because you can handle me pretty much any way, and you know I'll be back to normal afterward?"

Sylar gapes at her, appalled. Disgusted. Highly offended.

"Son of a _bitch, _Claire, what the hell do you think I want to do to you?" he blurts, looking her up and down. "I'm a serial killer, not a _pervert_."

Claire blinks, momentarily surprised. She simply assumed that was part of it. Remove that bit of weirdness from his physical infatuation with her, and she's not sure she sees the appeal. She's just a short, blond, former Texan housewife, after all.

"Fine," she replies nevertheless. "Then you really shouldn't have a problem with turning off my ability for a while."

"A while?" He lifts a skeptical brow.

"Just for a while. All I expect is a year or two of normalcy, okay?" Claire smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes. "You should be sick of me by then. I mean, I'm not naïve. Anymore."

He knows she's remembering her marriage.

"You're underestimating me a bit, don't you think? Took Rutherford three decades."

_I know, _he admits to himself._ I was counting_.

"The point is, you're holding all the cards here," Claire explains. "All I can do is ask you to turn it off, for as long as you feel like humoring me. When you say it's over, it's over. I walk." She shrugs. "Not like I can force you."

It sounds so cold. Icy, he thinks. Well, he envisioned snowglobes, didn't he?

"All right."

The words crawl out of his throat, reluctant, gravelly. He still doesn't like this. Not one bit.

But he likes Claire.

She raises her eyebrows hopefully.

"Yeah?"

"Only . . . I need you to say it one more time. To my face."

"What?" At this point, she appears ready to say anything. If he replied _The United States Constitution, _she'd probably recite it verbatim.

"That it isn't just about your ability." He looks hard at her face. "Tell me we're not just exchanging goods here, Claire."

She approaches slowly, but with determination, stopping an inch or so from him.

"It's not just about my ability," she says dutifully but honestly. "I—" Her lashes flutter a bit in hesitation. "I want it. You. When I slept in your bed, I used to lie there imagining what it would be like to kiss you and touch you till you were so turned on you'd just . . ."

Her face is nearly crimson, and it's one of the most beautiful sights he's ever beheld.

"It's why I left, for the most part," she admits.

The tingle that accompanies falsehoods is conspicuously, wonderfully absent. He nods.

"One more condition," he says. "And this is important."

"Shoot."

"_You cannot hurt yourself_," he states emphatically. "I don't care if you're depressed and you feel like ending it all or if you're just curious to find out what it's like to lose an appendage without instantly sprouting a new one. _Don't_. Promise me."

"I thought you didn't put much stock in promises."

"Claire."

"How will I know, if I can't test it?" she asks stubbornly.

Sylar wavers.

"You can test it once," he allows. "Then you have to trust me."

Claire looks down at herself, at her arms and hands.

"Now?" she asks, her voice small.

His lips thin for a second. Is it really worth it, just to have her here to talk to and touch when he wants, instead of following her around picking fights and trying to cover up the fact that he wants to jump her?

"Let me do it," he says.

Taking her hand, he turns it palm-up and, placing the tip of his index finger to the center, draws a small, superficial cut along her skin. Claire chews her lip and watches the scarlet line of blood swell up in her palm, holding her wound like a prize, while Sylar studies her face. He could do without the fascination he sees there. It reminds him of something . . . someone.

Finally, she laughs softly and looks up at him, her eyes overflowing with delight. For a brief moment, all is forgiven, or at least forgotten--her job, her friend, her shattered adolescence . . .

"You could have put it somewhere more convenient," she complains, but she sounds happy enough to kiss him. So he takes advantage.

"I thought you could keep an eye on it there," he tells her, in between tracing the contours of her neck and jaw with his lips. "Watch it heal . . . Good god, you are _short_."

"That's the great thing about beds," Claire murmurs, tilting her head and standing on tiptoe to push her skin up into his touch. The silk of his lips and the scratch of his stubble feel exquisite on her neglected nerves. "Doesn't matter who you're with—when you're horizontal, you're the same height."

Her words and her stance, the way each seems to invite more from him, serve to unlock whatever barriers remain between them. Suddenly, they're attacking each other.


	21. There Is No Texas

**I wound up rewriting/rearranging a lot of this chapter, and due to that I failed to respond to any reviews (I feel like I'm being horribly ungrateful when I do that, now that I'm aware of the reply button). So--thank you, to everyone who read/reviewed/etc. This fic would die without your support. **

**By the way, I went back and read over the first 14 chapters or so, and it seems SO obvious now that I began this fic several episodes before Invisible Thread aired. Oh, well. :)**

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Sylar never really envisioned it this way. Not that he ever actually _envisioned _it—not consciously . . . not on purpose . . . Ahem.

But somehow, he never imagined Claire being the instigator. Maybe it's because he always assumed their first time would be angry and desperate and mostly his doing, Claire succumbing to the sorrow and isolation brought on by modern humanity's final calamity. They'd fight, each of them lonely and bitter and scared like hell of the infinite calm stretching out before them, and end up going at it like animals, probably still snarling at each other and slightly clueless as to how it happened. Claire would blame him, of course—for the collapse of civilization, for the sex, for everything that was his fault and everything that wasn't—and tell him that she hated him, always would, and god damn him for still being here at the end of it all, even as she came apart beneath him, around him.

The idea held a certain romance for him.

This is better. This is much, much better.

She's so _involved,_ as she pounces on him, legs coming up around his hips, as she bites down on his lower lip just hard enough to give him a short, sweet sting, that he can't possibly feel as though he's taking advantage of her. Hell, if anyone's getting conned, it's _him, _and he's hardly complaining. She can pick his pocket if she wants, while her hands are roaming like that, and he won't say a word.

Truthfully, he's borderline ashamed of his own behavior—or _would_ be, if there was adequate circulation going to his brain. Sylar wants to go slow, make it good—incredible, even. He wants to _make love_ to her, damn it, take her and shake her every sense so that anyone who's gone before him pales in comparison. He wants to be, not merely better, but _special_. But it's hard, once he finally gets his hands on something he's wanted for around half a century, whether he knew it or not.

So he's afraid it's not so much making love to her as it is going to town on her. His hands are all over, and Claire realizes he must be using his telekinesis to keep her so weightless. His mouth is everywhere he can reach, and he when he finds he _can't_ reach, he works to get at it, uncover it, so he can continue his rapid-fire testing and tasting of her.

Her shirt, for instance, that light pink, fitted number she wore to work. The top three buttons come open easily, but when the swell of her breasts is barely exposed, he becomes impatient. Getting her naked suddenly seems like less a desirable task and more an imperative—sexual, sure, but also evolutionary. God knows Sylar adores his evolutionary imperatives, and he's all too willing to believe that Nature wants him to mate with Claire Bennet.

So it's _Nature_ telling him to rip her shirt open. Why, certainly. Who is he to accuse Nature of being cliché?

Sylar reaches between them—there's not much space, really—and hooks his fingers in her shirt. He pulls sharply, and it comes apart with a pleasing series of muffled _pops_, showering the floor with round buttons.

"Hey!" Claire exclaims breathlessly, as he knocks her head back with his so he can kiss at her throat and clavicle while he maps the newly exposed region of her flesh with his fingers. "You ruined it . . ."

She bites his earlobe, a bit too seriously, to scold him. He grunts slightly at the pinch of her teeth.

"Sorry," he says, but he doesn't sound it, so Claire returns the favor. She has to put a little more effort into it, but after two good tugs, his black shirt comes open down to his belt, where it's tucked in. She jerks out the remainder to finish the job.

"Oops," she says snidely. "My apologies, Sylar—I realize that's the only shirt you own."

A few steps, and her upper back collides with the wall.

"Say that again," he commands.

"You want me to insult your wardrobe some more? That do it for you?"

"My _name_." He pushes her shirt off her shoulders, down her arms, onto the floor.

"Oh—Sylar."

He goes for the clasp on her bra and can't find it. Feels like an inexperienced teenager, fumbling in back for a hook that won't come undone.

"What the--?"

"It's in the front . . . Sylar."

"How convenient," he growls.

Claire traps his arms as she removes his shirt; the cuffs catch around his hands, holding them up, so Sylar unfastens her bra telekinetically with little more than a blink. It springs open as his shirt finally drops, and he simply gazes at her.

So this is what she looks like . . . and looked like. She's beautiful and always has been.

"It's, um, impolite to stare," Claire chides uncertainly after several seconds, during which she develops a heat flush beneath his fixed line of vision.

Blinking, he ducks his head as if to hide and ghosts his bottom lip along her shoulders, pushing her bra straps off one at a time. And his hand slides up her torso, over her ribcage—hard, as if he wants to memorize every ridge and valley—and curves over one of her breasts.

Claire almost laughs breathlessly, because she doesn't quite fill up his large hand, but she sucks the gathering laughter back into her lungs when the pad of his thumb strokes her nipple, making it rigid.

_God_. She can remember a time when his touch disgusted her, when the barest hint of his fingertips brushing her cheekbone made her cringe visibly. _First First Lady_ indeed, god what an arrogant—

"Sylar—ohhhh, Sylar . . ."

His mouth has found her. Thoughtlessly, she curls her legs tighter, digging her heels into the muscle of his buttocks to press him closer. He responds, grinding into her, and her head rocks back, banging into the wall.

There's a clock right above her. It looks heavy, like it could probably crack her skull apart if it fell.

_This man cracked my skull once, _she reflects, and her hips momentarily still, though her fingers remain knotted in his hair. _What would they say if they knew? _

Who are _they_? Peter, Nathan, Sandra—Noah, who spent a lifetime trying to protect her from this man?

Damn it, this is no time to think of her father.

_Shut up!_ she snaps at herself. _I want this, god damn it. I _need _this. To hell with—_

_No, no, no . . . Sshhhh . . . _She's not ready to go _there_ just yet.

To ground herself, she focuses on the bottom of the clock and inexplicably notes that her heart is racing ahead of the loud, ticking second hand. Something that needs to be fixed, pronto. Experimentally, she moans another name.

"Gabriel . . ."

He stills, and he lifts his eyes level with hers once more.

"Not that one, please," he says, and the _please_ is cursory. _We played that game already_. _I _never _win that game._

Because he looks vaguely put out, Claire moves in, sucking at the pulse in his neck so she can feel it race against her tongue. With her hand, she caresses her own chest, wanting to feel the warm dampness he left behind. The sudden sear in his groin that accompanies the sight of her touching herself forces a small moan past his lips, parted and still slightly swollen from the last kiss. The sound makes Claire feel ridiculously proud of herself. She wants more of that feeling, so her other hand makes a path down his chest, his stomach, over his navel and the thin, dark line of hair that shoots down from it.

"Oh, god, don't do that," he groans, hand clamping down around her wrist as she slips her fingers past the border of his belt.

"Why?" teases Claire, soft words vibrating against the shell of his ear. "What'll happen?"

"Claire . . ."

She retracts her fingers, but not to heed his request. His belt swooshes out of the loops and hits the floor with a metallic thud from the buckle, and she presses the heel of her hand against the button on his jeans.

"Claire," he repeats, slightly dazedly, and she's starting to understand why he gets such a kick out of hearing his name come off her lips. He's not even sure if he's warning her or encouraging her anymore. Certainly, he's not moving to stop her.

She gets his fly open so deftly he can't help but be reminded uneasily of all the practice she's had. He tries to rid himself of that notion—which isn't difficult, because when she slips her hand in, she looks him dead in the face.

Sylar lets loose a quiet swear, and an ill-suppressed smirk finds its way onto Claire's lips. Somehow, it's gorgeous.

But, actually . . . it's all a little too much. It's that _teenager _feeling again, all need and no control. Damn it, why is he _like _this with Claire? Eternal youth, and he suddenly feels younger than ever, but in the horrid, awkward sort of way that he forgot about long ago. And he's afraid if she keeps that up--

No, he needs to stop her. _Now. _Or he'll never live it down. He'll spend the rest of his life reflecting on the fact that he had Claire Bennet half-naked and willing in his home, and he never even made it to bed with her.

The rest of his life . . . Oh, shit, he will _literally_ never live it down.

In a moment of panic, he releases his pointlessly slack grip on her wrist, flings out his fingers, and Claire finds her arms beside her, hands by her head. She has a split second to lift her eyebrows in surprise before she's flipped around, her naked chest flush against the wall.

Sylar clears his throat in a formal, almost prim fashion that makes her want to snort, because she can tell he's trying to hide how breathless he is.

"I take it this is going somewhere," she says, still riding the high of almost making him lose control.

He makes a noise of irritation in his throat at her joking attitude as he comes up behind her. His hands fall on her waist.

"I said not to . . . do that," he reproaches weakly. He reaches around and starts to unfasten her slacks, and she kind of loves that he's doing it with his hands instead of his power.

"Well, considering what we're doing here, I didn't realize I was entering forbidden territory," she points out.

"That's not—" He rolls his eyes, then lowers them as he pushes off the rest of her clothing.

She's naked, and it's strange, because he can't remember her looking so breakable, so very _vulnerable_, not even when he had her on her back in California, brain exposed and tears on her face.

It's exciting. He presses against her back, pushes her hair aside, and softly kisses the nape of her neck. Claire's eyes drift shut, and a sigh works its way up from somewhere deep in her lungs.

"That's not why I said it," he finishes, but he's not quite certain how to explain without coming off the worse for it. Finally, he tries, "Claire, what's the longest you ever waited for somebody?"

"I—_ah!_"

He's exploring with his fingers now, returning the favor, and the violence of her reaction when he finds the exact spot thrills him. As she cries out, she tosses her head and hits him square in the mouth; Sylar tastes a hint of copper, and then, like always, it's gone.

"Sorry, I . . ."

Her head is still back, chin against the wall, and he's breathing against her ear—wants to grind into her again from this new angle, but holds off. Focuses on making _her_ moan. Slips his hand further into the apex of her legs and is once more reminded jarringly of Costa Verde, how her blood was warm and wet and slick. In his present state, the memory feels wrong, dirty. He shoves it away, closing his eyes and burying his face in her soft, un-bloodied hair.

Claire, realizing what he's implying by his question, emits something between a laugh and a pant as she derisively states, "You weren't _waiting_ for me, Sylar. You were going around head-hunting—_and_, I'm sure, screwing a bunch of other women in the process."

She pushes back as she says _screwing_, and he pushes forward, slamming one of her hip bones and, on the other side, his own wrist into the wall. Now he _is_ grinding against her, shoving himself up between her thighs, and it pisses him off to think she's deliberately misunderstanding him.

"I didn't _ask_ what's the longest you ever waited for _sex_," he clarifies harshly into the sensitive skin behind her earlobe. "I said . . . for _somebody_."

Claire doesn't give an answer. She suspects the truth might anger or hurt him. He seems to know this, pressing on with a slightly bitter laugh.

"Besides . . . you were busy screwing people, too, and . . . whatever the hell you were doing in Texas. Baking pies . . . skinny-dipping in your lake . . ." He's getting faster, rougher in his movements, and he doesn't even realize it, he's so focused on the infuriating speculation.

The idea occurs to Claire that he might be trying, however unconsciously, to hurt her. In truth, she doesn't really want to stop him—or, at least, her body doesn't want to. His motions at her back, accompanied by his still-active fingers, are tipping her over the edge, as well. But when he moans and bites out--

"I should've dried up the goddamn lake . . ! Drowned the bastard in it first . . ."

--she knows she has to.

"Hey."

He doesn't respond.

"Hey!" Claire reaches back and knots her fingers into his hair, forcing him to look at her. "_Stop,_" she commands, the word coming out in a chastising but strangely soothing whisper.

His eyes widen slightly as he complies.

"It's _over_, okay?" she tells him firmly. "No lake, no . . . Rob. No gold band on my finger. _There is no Texas_—not anymore. You need to let it go."

He swallows, looking down, away from her eyes.

"You _need_ to," she reiterates, "or we can't do this."

"_You're_ the one who—" he begins and stops abruptly. He's not sure where the sentence is headed. _You're the one who wanted to do this? You're the one who can't let it go? _Now that he thinks about it, both statements would be true—but she's right; they could be equally applied to _him_. He has to get a grip.

"Can you at least say you're sorry?" he asks in a whisper.

"Wh--? For what?"

"_Marrying him_." He thinks it should be fairly obvious. _You_ _fool_. _I still don't understand how you could do that to . . . yourself. _If he can't make her take it back, he'll settle for a decent apology.

"You want me to apologize for the last thirty years of my life?"

"Yes." Is there a problem?

Claire pushes her arms against the wall, craning her spine to look at him more fully.

"You first," she says. "Say you're sorry for something—_anything_. So long as it's true . . ." She flicks her eyes down his bare shoulder. "You know, you've got blood on you."

Sylar, too, glances down, and she's right. She must have touched him there while the shallow cut in her hand was still bleeding. But somehow, he doesn't think she's referring to that.

Costa Verde, indeed. _Is_ he sorry?

No.

"Fair enough, Claire Bear," he replies, falling back from her. "I guess you don't owe me an apology, after all."

And he was all ready to forgive her, too.

Claire can hear him removing his jeans and, presumably, boxers. She has to admit she's relieved; when the warmth behind her disappeared, she was afraid she'd pushed too much with her words, pushed him away. She isn't sure which she's more afraid of losing: his power to repress her ability or the solid feel of his form.

"Remember when I first got here?" she asks lightly in an attempt at recovering the situation. "And I said if we got bored you could pin me against the wall?"

She reminds him only because she wants him to laugh, which he does, quietly.

"I can make it nicer," he informs her. "More comfortable. Shift your center of gravity so that you're sort of . . ."

He does something she can't see, and suddenly she's not pinned against the wall—rather, she's lying upon it, her weight shifting impossibly forward. Even her hair obeys, falling around her face.

"Huh," she laughs, running her hand flat over the wall, marveling that she'd swear she was on the floor if she didn't know better, if there were no clocks or shelves about.

His hand falls over hers.

"I got it from a physicist in Washington. He was just _wowing _the scientific community with his so-called _discoveries_—you can imagine. I'm not sure even _he_ knew he was a fraud . . . Then, I didn't bother to ask him."

Claire thinks he's telling her to be vindictive, to assert how very _un_sorry he is for all that he's done. And to taunt her, because he believes she's so desperate for the Haitian's ability that she'll stay anyway.

He's right.

"I read about it," she says with deliberate nonchalance. Then, "You're not going to do me from behind, are you? 'Cause I kind of wanted to watch you."

Sylar feels his knees go weak, so he lets them collapse forward, one on either side of Claire's calves.

"If you have your heart set on it, you should probably turn over," he says.

Claire does, reclining with her arms over her head. She peers down her own body to examine his. There's an instant in which he appears uncharacteristically bashful—Gabriel coming out, she thinks, or Gabriel running to hide—and then he's all silent defiance, as if he suspects her of drawing comparisons. The funny thing is, he _knows_ how good he looks—he must—but he still wants her approval.

She pushes herself up (_Dear lord, I do believe I'm sitting on the wall_) and kisses this bitter, wonderful, funny, horrible, beautiful Grim Reaper long and hard. At the same time, she pulls her legs out from between his, draping them on either side of him. When he pulls back, he hooks one over his shoulder and, stroking the bend of her knee absently with his thumb, begins kissing his way down her inner thigh.

Claire watches, her abdomen a tight, hot ball. He pauses at the fleshy base to suck lightly. Halting, he observes the red spot on her skin and seems deeply pleased with it.

Claire also stares wonderingly at it.

"You're the first man who's ever left a mark on me," she expresses for both of them, reaching down to brush the spot.

He captures her fingers in his and does something with his mouth and tongue that makes her clench her thighs around him, heel pressing into his back.

"And the last," he says, crawling up the wall, moving his lips up her body, kissing her everywhere as he promised himself nights ago under the influence of the tequila.

Claire knows he's right—technically. No one else will ever be able to leave a mark on her, unless she loses her mind and invites Sylar over to get his Haitian on and maybe run a highly critical commentary as she sleeps with someone else. But his words still ring ominously in her ears . . . She has a hunch he isn't speaking on the basis of _technically_.

"Did you know you always smell like peaches?" he asks as he nuzzles into her hair, and now she's sure of it.

"Sylar . . ." Is he lying to her, or to himself? They're both aware this is a very limited engagement.

He's poised to enter her.

"Wait a second—"

Claire squeezes her thighs around his hips, stopping him

He jerks his eyes up to hers and finds they're wide, anxious.

Suddenly, he regrets that remark about the physicist. God, she's not backing out, she _can't_ back out, not _now_—

"Sylar, I—"

Claire blinks.

"It's just . . ."

He's looking at her with raised eyebrows, body shaking with want, the expression on his face a bit too readable for her liking, and she just can't do it to him. Not yet. Not _now_. So she finds herself blurting:

"Well—just so you know . . . Every time I—I mean, the way I am, the way I heal—so every time, it's always like . . . you know. The first time. Just, um, seemed like something you ought to know. In case you could tell."

Her face is pink, and it isn't due to arousal. Well, not entirely, anyway.

He nods hastily.

"Yes. No, of course."

He already knew that, obviously, but he isn't telling her that. _Right, your husband told me when we were discussing your sex life_. He can just imagine saying that while they're skin to skin.

"Course, I guess this'll be the last time . . . for a _little_ while," she adds, hoping the hint will fail to bounce off him for once. She can't tell if it registers as she looses her hold on his hips, and he sinks down, pressing a deep but strangely tender kiss against her mouth.

"It doesn't hurt," she says quietly, eyes closed, as his lips leave hers and she feels him shifting against her cautiously, almost experimentally. "You don't have to be gentle or anything . . ."

She doesn't want him to be gentle.

"I know," he says.

He pierces her.

Claire gasps, but as she told him, there's no pain. It's simply the sensation of being filled so suddenly, so utterly, that takes her breath away for a second. She can't even _remember_ the last time she enjoyed sex. Whenever Rob touched her during the last few months of their sinking marriage, she detected a suspicious perfume hanging about him, magnified to suffocation by her growing mistrust. It was enough to put a damper on things.

Sylar stills at the noise, stalling his movements to allow her to become accustomed to the breach. That's what he's supposed to do with a virgin, he guesses. Which is laughable in a way, because she _isn't_, by a good seventy-five years or so.

_Bizarre_, Rutherford termed it. The bastard.

_There's no Texas_, he reminds himself, wishing he believed it, wishing it were true in the literal sense. Wishing away the lacey negligees he saw in her house and every single one of the faux first times she experienced before now.

"Claire, I—"

She hugs him closer, wrapping her arms around him. Wriggling her lower body beneath his weight, she draws him in deeper and gives him a brief squeeze with her muscles. She wants _him _to gasp. He doesn't, but he flinches with an almost imperceptible narrowing of the eyes, and takes it as a signal.

He starts easy. Not because he wants to—he feels as if they've had eighty years of foreplay, and all he wants is to crash into her until he can't anymore—but because he thinks he's supposed to. And, he admits, because he wants to make it last and doesn't quite trust himself. Being with Claire isn't like being with some random woman he'll never see again, and whom he just might kill afterward if the getting is good. Claire feels . . . different. _Is_ different. He thinks he could lose himself in Claire.

But she doesn't want _easy_. Running her hands down his back, she reaches as low as she can, clutching at him, trying to force his pace.

"Quit being such a goddamn gentleman!" she finally snaps in desperation. He never was _before_, and she thinks this is a hell of a time to start.

After that, it's all rather frantic. They slam into one another repeatedly with more greed than grace, more force than skill. He bruises her lips, and she leaves little red crescents all over his upper arms, which heal in the wake of her nails as she moves on to press another set into his back, his buttocks, anywhere she happens to be touching him when he makes her fingers and toes clench.

She loves the noises he makes, loves seeing if she can turn a growl into a groan. He's absolutely enamored of the brief moans that drift intermittently from her throat, and he finds himself bringing his lips to her breast again, sending a spark of electricity into the peak simply to see if he can turn up her volume.

It's over too quickly . . . but contrary to his fear, it's Claire who goes first. She tries to hide her face against his clavicle, but he twists his fingers into her hair with unintentional cruelty, forcing her head back so he can watch her. From sternum up, she's so flushed she looks almost sunburned, and her expression is more agony than ecstasy: eyes squeezed tightly shut, lips parted as if she wants to cry out or maybe scream. He wants her to, but she doesn't—just more of her sweet little moans. It isn't until she's finished quaking that she exhales his name.

He shudders against her an instant later, but he cheats, burying his face in the sanctuary offered by her neck and shoulder. He holds his breath without realizing it, though Claire notices.

The two slide away from the wall slowly, still joined, cheek to cheek. He drops to his trembling knees, depositing Claire on the floor with her feet flat and legs bent close to her chest. Breathing shallowly, he looks her over. His eyes linger when they reach a certain location, and his head tilts.

Frowning, Sylar drags his fingertips along her inner thigh. When he draws them back, they're bloody. Claire watches him bring the glistening scarlet close to his face, and for the first time she experiences a moment of unpleasantness, her heart thudding high in her throat.

_Are you gonna eat it? _

But of course he doesn't do anything of the kind. Just peers at it with something akin to curiosity, or possibly reflection, a deepening furrow in his brow.

_Claire, that's disgusting. _

She shuts her eyes and drops her head back. Catches her breath. Allows herself to accept that, yes, she just had crazy wall-sex with a man she once stabbed in the brain for being such a murder-happy psychopath. For _shame_, Claire Bennet.

But is she sorry?

"I want to do it again," she says, opening her eyes to look at him.

He drops his hand, curling her blood into his fist.

"God damn it, Claire . . ." He reclines on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling. "Give me a minute."

She can see his chest is still rising and falling with heightened rapidity, and he's still hanging onto her blood, tapping his knuckles absently against the floor at his side. He glances over at her sharply, studying her, and feels charmed by the way a few strands of blond hair have flattened against the dampness on her forehead.

"There _is_ one thing I'm sorry about," he confesses in a low tone. "But you may not want to hear it."

"This should be interesting."

"I'm sorry I never killed Hiro Nakamura," he states honestly. "It was all I could think about on the flight to Texas, right after you called me. How I could have been there in a second. I kept on kicking myself, over and over." He stares at her, but her face registers no obvious response. "I _hated_ seeing you on that carpet, Claire."

Dead bodies rarely turn Sylar's stomach, but he could have happily spent eternity without the sight that greeted him in her living room. As far as he's concerned, Nakamura was just a vessel with something valuable stashed inside. Harder to crack than most, unfortunately.

Claire isn't sure what to say to this revelation.

"You probably could've kept that one to yourself," she replies after a moment. He shrugs one shoulder and returns his gaze upward. Claire shifts from the wall and stretches out on her stomach, resting her head just above his navel. He strokes her languidly, and she lifts a hand to his chest, her middle finger doing idle figure-eights in the dusting of dark hair.

"I'm sorry I married Rob," she allows him reluctantly, and his hand pauses on her head. "I mean, I'm _not_—but I am . . . you understand?"

Homecoming. Costa Verde. Just now. How many times has he made her bleed? He wonders.

"Completely," he answers, and he means it.


	22. Baby Talk

So, this is domestic bliss. Claire is shaking him awake, speaking in a loud, angry tone.

"Mmm—what?" he asks, groggy.

"My _hand_," Claire repeats for what feels, to her, like the umpteenth time. "It healed overnight—see?"

She waves it in Sylar's face, efficiently conveying the idea that she'd like to slam it down into his nose.

"Is my memory going haywire, or was that _not_ supposed to happen?"

"Claire—" He rolls his bleary eyes and clears the hoarseness from his throat. "I was asleep."

"So what, you can't keep it up when you're sleeping?"

"I don't know . . . I've never tried before." He doubts it, however. The Haitian's ability is one of those powers that requires some modicum of conscious control. Now he wonders why it didn't occur to either of them during the long night before. Probably, they didn't _want_ to think of it. He knows _he_ didn't—with Claire in his arms, the last thing he wanted was to dissuade her by discussing the flaws in her plan.

"Shit." Claire stares at her smooth, unflawed palm. She's risen to her knees beside him, and he takes in the view. There are worse sights to wake to.

"God, I was _stupid_ last night," she mutters. His appreciation evaporates instantly, and an ugly wave of irritation washes over his face.

"Oh, morning after with you is turning out to be even more fun than I imagined," he snaps.

Claire aims an exaggerated sigh at him.

"We didn't use any protection," she spells out, her voice full of exasperation.

"Oh—I thought you meant . . . Well, never mind."

Slightly mollified, he pushes himself up, leaning back on his hands.

"What's the problem, Claire Bear," he asks with a perplexed half-smile. "You don't want me to knock you up and make it stick this time?"

Choosing to ignore his crassness, Claire still can't help looking suddenly uncomfortable.

"I don't know if I want to be pregnant again," she says slowly. "And anyway . . . I'm sure you're not thrilled at the prospect, either."

Actually . . . Sylar isn't so certain.

On the one hand, he doesn't want a baby any more than the next man whose parents screwed up his life. What would he _do_ with one? It would be a messy little animalistic creature. It would reek up his house and leave little sticky handprints all over everything once it was mobile. Naturally, when it was old enough to develop complex emotions, it would despise him.

However, taking all that into consideration, images of Claire burst into his mind—of her abdomen, round and firm to the touch, fluttering under his fingertips with the kicking of _his_ creation; of her breasts, heavy with milk; of her face, exhausted and wet with perspiration, as she births a bloody, writhing thing that will tie her to him as long as it survives. It's enough to make him light-headed . . . and kind of hard.

_Oh, god, I _am_ a pervert._

He swallows and shifts his knee.

"What changed your mind?" he asks, truly curious. It seems to him that every time the subject of babies is broached, she goes nearly to pieces, and yet overnight she's decided she's content to remain barren. This doesn't add up.

"Well, you know . . ." She shrugs. "What you said back at the hotel—"

His eyes close for a second at the harsh memory and the accompanying wave of shame.

"Besides," Claire continues, injecting a lighter note into her voice, "I know it's hard for you to believe, but I really don't want your demon-spawn clawing its way out of me."

Oh. _Now_ it adds up.

Claire means it in jest—or, at least, she expects him to take it that way. She isn't prepared for the wounded expression that surfaces on his face for an instant, as if she hauled off and slapped him without warning or cause.

"I was just _joking_," she mumbles.

"It's nothing to me," he parries with a flippant shrug, quickly collecting himself. "It just seemed important to you before, and—well, you never used anything with Rutherford. _Obviously_."

God, to think that disloyal, inconsequential _jackass_ was allowed to spill himself inside of her, again and again and again. Thirty years worth of marking her. Now more than ever, Sylar wishes he had killed him, erased him for good. He still might.

"That's not entirely true," Claire denies. "After the second time, we got into that whole rhythm thing."

"Which worked swimmingly, I take it." _Die, Rutherford. And like a dog, please. No, wait. I like dogs. _

"Oh, _obviously,_" she parrots him, then leans over and gently tries to kiss his frown away. Which is very sweet of her, he supposes, but he just isn't having it. She sighs and shoves him in the shoulder. "I don't get it, what's the big deal? You been harboring a secret latex phobia all these years?"

He exhales sharply. How can she joke when he feels so raw all over, arousal and anger coursing through his body with every accelerated pump of his heart?

"Just strikes me as odd," he says brusquely. "Suddenly you're appalled by the idea of carrying to term, whereas before you were doing next to nothing to prevent—well, you know. The unhappy alternative. As I see it, the only aspect that's changed is . . ."

He gestures pointedly, splaying his fingers. _You know._ Or more accurately, _You know who._

Claire averts her eyes for a second and sidles up to him across the mattress. Sylar automatically suspects that the next words out of her mouth will be highly offensive, because he understands that bringing herself into closer proximity is her way of cushioning the blow, something like handing him a brightly colored lollipop with a secret ring of red poison and topping it off with a patronizing pat on the head.

"Starting a family is _kind of_ a big deal," she tells him in that _speaking-to-a-slow-child _tone he loves so much. "That's not . . . well, that's just not _for_ us, okay? It made sense for me and Rob, because we were already a family. 'Course, it's all shot to hell now, but we _were_."

"And what are _we?_" he wonders, every bit as affronted as he anticipated. "Enemies with benefits?"

"Not enemies," she tells him, then laughs at the glower that hovers like a black thundercloud on his brow. "God, you've got a house full of books and no TV, but you still turn into such a _guy_ sometimes, you know that? Look, I'll go on the Pill. Is that better?"

Sylar can see that nothing good can come from pushing the topic. Reluctantly, he caves.

"I can live with that," he states after a brief consideration.

Claire rolls her eyes at this display of generosity.

"Easy with the leeway, Prince Charming," she replies sarcastically, drawing back. "First it's the Pill—next thing you know, I'm lobbying for the vote."

"That's not what this is about," he argues, before he throws the sheets back and climbs out of bed. There, he stops cold, one hand in his rumpled hair, looking down at himself.

"What?" Claire asks, noting his apparent surprise.

"Oh—" he replies absently. "Nothing, I'm . . . naked."

A series of high-pitched giggles erupts from Claire's throat, and she stretches out on her back.

"Well—_yeah_," she laughs, vibrating the mattress with her amusement. "That's generally how you wake up when you go to bed that way. Did you expect the Pajama Fairy to fly in and dress you?"

Shaking his head at the slip, he grabs the edge of the cover and rips it off of Claire, who releases a small, startled, but not displeased shriek at the sudden exposure. Chuckling, he drops back onto the bed and crawls over her like a predator, momentarily stopping her breath.

"I'm going to hit the shower," he informs her, then gazes at her, head tilted. "Feel like tagging along, Claire Bear?"

_There's_ something that would definitely cheer him up: Claire, her hair wet and darkened against her scalp, suds sliding in the dip of her navel . . .

"No . . ." She wants it to come out more firmly, but it's difficult when he peers up at her from beneath his brow, his eyes suddenly, intentionally smoky. How does he do that so well? It should be a crime. As if he isn't criminal enough already.

"Why . . ?" All she can see is the top of his head as he kisses her stomach, causing a flash of heat to sear beneath the spot. "You probably _need_ a shower, after—"

Claire reaches down and touches his hair.

"We can't do that again," she informs him with a valiant attempt at suppressing the very real regret that wells up inside her. "I mean, not without some kind of contraception. I'll make an appointment, but until then . . ."

He retreats from her, eyes down. At first she assumes he's merely displeased and feels aggravated by his flippancy toward her dilemma, but as he stands again, she notes embarrassment barely smothered by his false detachment.

"I don't actually have any," he divulges flatly.

"Nothing at all?" Claire lifts a skeptical brow. He's got to have to have _something_ lying around. Everybody does. Perhaps he just shoved it in a drawer for a rainy, luckier day and then forgot about it in the midst of all his excitement over books and clocks and fascinating brains.

Or . . . maybe he simply never needed it before. Could it be that his previous consorts met rather grisly ends before the issue of unwanted pregnancy ever managed to rear its terrifying, alien head?

_Remember Elle?_ she thinks, and wonders what sort of dialogue might ensue if she dared to ask the question aloud. Somehow, she doesn't think it would be pretty.

Catching her looking at him oddly, Sylar misconstrues her expression and lifts his hands as if to say _You got me._

"Ran out on the flight to Texas," he says sardonically. "Honestly, Claire, what do you want me to say? I don't have any. It's not like I anticipated . . . _this_."

"It's fine," she assures him. "No reason to be embarrassed."

"I'm _not_," he insists, his lip curling slightly.

Why should he be? Simply because she's just been making him ill with talk of Rutherford and the rhythm method—because her dresser drawers back in Texas were peppered with negligees and the bed was clearly a bed meant for lovers—and because he's been living in New York, unattached, for fifteen years and is thrown off guard by awakening in the nude and doesn't have so much as a single goddamn condom stashed away in his wallet or the little-used medicine cabinet over the sink?

Why, no, that's not embarrassing. Certainly says nothing about the state of his social affairs.

_You haven't had company over in fifteen years_, Claire's voice taunts in his mind, and it occurs to him again that dropping that bit of information so idly was an immense mistake.

Well, for all Claire knows, he's been murdering his sexual partners. Who needs condoms when you're impervious to disease and enjoy the scent of blood the way some men enjoy a good smoke afterward?

"It's not like I haven't, you know—been with anybody," he protests impulsively, snatching an old but rarely worn pair of checked pajama bottoms from a drawer. He has no qualms baring a person's grey matter, but somehow he just cannot walk buck naked through his home to the shower, and their clothes from the day before are still lying abandoned in the living room. "I had a life these last thirty years, too, hard as that may be for you to believe."

Claire only smiles.

"I'm not the one being egotistical here, Sylar," she tells him. "Calm down; nobody called you a prude. So you don't keep birth control in stock—not really what I'd call a fatal flaw, considering most of your flaws are _literally_ fatal."

He doesn't answer, merely flicks his eyebrows upward in concurrence. Claire watches him secure the string at his waistband.

"I'm naked, too . . ." she communicates thoughtfully.

"So I noticed."

"Shit."

He watches, nonplussed, as she presses her hand over her forehead in vexation.

"What?"

"I left all my stuff at the hotel," she reminds him. "I've only got one set of clothes, and you mutilated my shirt. Thanks again for that, by the way."

"My pleasure," he replies sincerely, and shrugs away her predicament. "I'll buy you more stuff. For the time being, just throw on one of _my_ shirts."

Suddenly, he really, _deeply _wants to see her in one of his shirts. The idea evokes an even greater intimacy than what they shared last night.

"Maybe everything's still there," she hopes. "I should call. You can't just go replacing my entire wardrobe."

"I can, actually. Haven't we had this discussion before?" He remembers the olive-colored dress and feels a pang that he might not see her in it again. "And it's even more relevant now, I suppose, since we're sort of . . ."

The sentence trails away into a pensive nothingness.

"Sort of . . ?" she prods.

"What's the word for it? _Dating_ sounds so . . . adolescent."

"Screwing?" Claire suggests.

Sylar glares at her.

"I wish you wouldn't be so facetious about _us_, Claire," he reproaches.

"Well, goddamn, I didn't mean to be _facetious_. I wish you wouldn't say _us_ like you're talking about Zeus and Hera." He does that—pronounces it with some sentiment akin to reverence—and she finds it as unsettling as she found certain remarks he made in the midst of their foreplay.

"Well, the fact is, we're together," he points out, adding inwardly, _Whether you like it or not. _"Whatever you want to call it: dating, screwing, shacking up—"

"That's it." She snaps her fingers as he hits on the correct term.

"All right," he allows. "We're shacking up. Ergo, we are now a couple."

"Good _lord!_" she exclaims. He raises a brow, and she quickly apologizes, "Sorry, I just . . . realized you're right."

"Well, you don't have to sound so horrified."

"I do, actually," she argues heedlessly. "Although it might help if you wouldn't say it out loud like that."

"_To continue_," he presses on, "as one half of our happy little _couple_, I feel completely at liberty to buy you any damn thing I feel like. That includes clothing."

"Well, I don't like being _looked after_, Sylar. What about that?"

"Oh, Claire, don't think of it that way" he advises kindly. "Think of it as mooching. Pretend you're really sticking it to me and I bet you get a kick out of it. Besides—didn't Rutherford _look after_ you, if that's the way you want to put it?"

Now she returns with interest the glare she received from him earlier.

"Which is exactly why I don't like it," she says. "Look how that little fairy tale ended."

He laughs.

"Rutherford had a midlife crisis and went insane," he explains. "You and I don't even _have_ midlives. And I've _always_ been a little off, a fact you're well aware of, so that won't be an issue, either."

"True . . ."

Claire lapses into silence for a moment, pondering, in particular, his comment about their lack of midlives. Sylar turns to go and is crossing through the doorway when she speaks again.

"You haven't turned it back on yet, have you?"

He glances back, eyebrows raised innocently. She lifts her hand, revealing her smooth palm.

"Our deal?" She knows he hasn't forgotten.

"I have," he says.

She appears to be trying to see into his skull.

"I _have_," he insists firmly. Huffing, he puts his hands on his hips and faces her full on. "Look, Claire, you're not going to start spouting blood every time I turn your ability off, so you might as well learn to trust me. You _said_ last night that you would."

She's positive she said no such thing. Perhaps she implied it somehow, but those words never left her lips.

"Okay," she agrees with a slight coolness. She can feel him staring at her as she looks at her palm, tracing her fingertip over the spot where the beautiful cut used to be, for several long seconds before he leaves.

[] [] []

He uses a straight razor to shave. She finds it in the medicine cabinet alongside a few unwrapped bars of soap. Why he wants to use such an antiquated object she can't say for certain, though she guesses he takes satisfaction in the knowledge that he could commit murder with his grooming tools if he took a notion to do so. Trickier to kill with an electric razor, though she imagines he could pull it off if he wasn't opposed to bludgeoning someone repeatedly.

He's down in the kitchen now, making coffee. She can still see him—smell him— emerging from the bathroom clean and damp and shirtless, can still see his eyes sweeping her scant length and flashing at the sight of her in one of his long, black (is there any other color?), unbuttoned shirts, can still feel the thrill that flared inches beneath her navel.

She wants him. Wants his body, anyway. The desire has not dissipated at all. If anything, following the fulfillment of the previous night, it's grown larger, feasting on the kisses and caresses and awakening twice as ravenous the next morning. The excitement is equal only to her shame.

A _couple_, he called them. God, is it really true? Claire doesn't want to say _arrangement_ any more than he wants to, but do they have to say _couple?_ Is she a serial killer's _girlfriend_ now? Is the man who slaughtered countless innocents—who made her adoptive mother cry and her biological mother _die, _for god's sake—is that same man her _lover_ now?

Can't they call it something else?

These questions spur her on as she steps into the shower, unfolds the razor and settles with her bottom against the wall, bending her knee and turning the sole of her right foot up to her eyes.

She cuts into the skin there, carving a nice, long incision from pad to heel. Smiles as the blood patters against the shower floor with no immediate signs of slowing.

All right. Today she can trust him. Tomorrow, the cut will have healed. Undeniably, she's bitter about that, but on a more logical level, she realizes it can't be helped. She only wishes she had made that point during their squabble over babies. The fact that he can't activate the Haitian's ability while sleeping would have closed the topic once and for all. It isn't as if she can simply turn off a pregnancy until morning. Even Sylar in his most pigheaded obstinacy would have to understand that.

She decides to bring it up during breakfast. _Make_ him accept it. Flipping on the shower, she recalls the sulky scowl that rested on his face and finds herself awash with belated impatience.

He doesn't even _want_ a child; she's sure of that. Which is fortunate, since he's basically a big kid himself, cycling between carefree euphoria and those entertaining tantrums that Sandra would have termed _hissy fits_. Not to mention his tendency toward narcissism, that staple trait of small children . . .

No, he just wants _her_ to want a baby, and then only because he would necessarily be the father.

Sylar.

As a father.

_Ugh_. Claire shudders in the steam as the hot water trickles down the drain, sweeping away the dwindling flow of her blood.


	23. Trust and Toxic Shock

Sylar cannot remember ever being quite this content with his life.

Claire is not running away from him. She is not trying to put bullets in him, or kitchen knives, or shards of glass, or (so they finally wised up, did they?) steel spikes. She is not screaming at him to get the hell out of her life or politely informing him that she hates his face, god damn it, and would very much like the opportunity to rearrange it for him. And she is not—he would like to repeat _not_—in Texas.

Claire is _with_ him. The woman with whom he has been obsessed—or, he can now admit, a more accurate word might be _infatuated_—for a lifetime is with him, and he is happy.

Her lips compress when he refers to them as a couple, but that's all right, because they _are_ one. No amount of protest on her part will alter that fact as long as she continues to live in his home, dine with him, pass the time with him, sleep alongside him.

Because when they go out together, it is not like it was before. Now they go out _together_. He grabs her hand as they traverse the crosswalk and doesn't have to hang on for dear life lest she rip her fingers away and use them to rake long scarlet grooves into his skin. It's fine. No big deal.

And when they fall into bed together, they are falling into bed _together_. Once, he would wait on her breathing to signal that she had fallen asleep before he cautiously curled his arm over her waist and drew her to him; now their limbs are already tangled when they begin to drift off, and more often than not he presses a final, drowsy kiss against her forehead in place of _Goodnight_.

Which is another milestone in itself, come to think of it: Claire says _Goodnight_ to him now. Over the vast, multifaceted course of their relationship, they have gone from _I will always try to kill you _to _Goodnight_—_oh, and_ _let's have waffles in the morning._ Reflecting upon this development, he marvels that time is kind only to those that defy it.

Darkness has always felt good to him, like a reliable hiding place; now, with Claire dreaming at his side, it feels like home.

[] [] []

Sylar cannot say for certain _why_ his previous sexual encounters tended to fall so few and far between. Gabriel didn't get out much, but it wasn't like he didn't _want_ it, like he didn't feel that he might be going out of his damned _mind_ some days. He took a lot of cold showers, and not for the purported health benefits.

But all that sort of receded once Chandra introduced him to his true potential. Sex was still exciting, but it couldn't hold a candle to the unholy and near-constant stimulation provided by the acquisition of new power. In the ever appropriate ice cream metaphor, sex itself would have been vanilla. He still _liked_ vanilla, and he'd undoubtedly still have it from time to time (or even, you know, _buy_ it). For the moment, however—dear god, rocky road, _where have you been all my life? _

In any case, he isn't sure when he last bought contraception of any kind. Though he's fairly positive he _never_ bought tampons.

"Never once in your life?" Claire asks. "Not even for—"

"I think I would remember, Claire."

Ironically enough, he thinks it may have been Gabriel who last ventured into a drugstore on such a quest, and that was one hell of a long time ago. Sylar imagines that, had he been able to prevent the inevitable mortified, tomato-like flush from rising in his face, Gabriel might have quite enjoyed the double purchase of condoms and tampons. Might have demanded a transparent bag to carry them in. It would have been like screaming to the world, _Look! I have a girlfriend! A real, live woman, I swear to god—she bleeds and everything! See?_

He bursts into laughter at the imagined scenario, causing Claire to look over at him questioningly. He doesn't even attempt to explain how very comically pathetic Gabriel was. They covered the topic pretty thoroughly that disastrous night with the tequila.

_It was for Elle_.

The memory hits him spitefully, a soft tap on the shoulder followed by a bucket of ice water, and the grin dies on his face as if shot.

Yes, he remembers now. If only lie detection had been Brian Davis' ability. Merely being in Elle Bishop's deceitful presence would have set his entire body on pins and needles. But like the needy simpleton he was, Gabriel made such a fool of himself over that poor, damaged bitch, that fallen angel who just couldn't tell the truth . . .

Of course, they wound up never even opening the little package. Wound up succumbing to a bout of spontaneous consummation many months and murders later on the wrecked floor of a dead man's house, right before his current girlfriend's father capped his then-girlfriend in the ass. Funny old world.

_Kind of gives a new meaning to the phrase unprotected sex_, he muses as he steps into the drugstore. Claire pushes in behind him at the last moment, having decided to accompany him. She wanders away down an aisle, presumably in search of the sanitary items she asked him to find.

As squirm-inducing as he finds said items, the instant he plants himself in front of the store's supply of contraceptive products, he wants to swap tasks with her.

_What in god's name . . ?_

He's never seen such an array. The entire shelf is a stupefying monument to depravity, the wide selection of condoms becoming somehow less daunting compared to other options, and he has no idea what the proper selection might be. Linking his hands behind him, he wracks his brain for the long-buried memory of what Gabriel bought—though, does he _really_ want to go the Gabriel route on this one, on anything?—as his eyes seek out something simple, ordinary.

A blond man with a small, square goatee strolls up and reaches out, easily selecting what is probably his standard choice. Sylar glances at it sharply to read the label, and the man catches his eye.

"Cherry flavor," the man supplies, twiddling the box at eye level and grinning from ear to ear.

Swiftly, Sylar turns and goes in search of Claire.

He finds her standing very still, almost surreptitiously, near the end of an aisle situated near the pharmacy counter. At the sound of his approaching footsteps, she turns, and there's a strange look on her face. What is that? Remorse? Guilt?

Frowning, he opens his mouth to question her, but she wipes her face of the unidentified sentiment, smiling at him.

"Um—did you find what you needed?" he asks instead.

"Yep." She pats the box in her hands before looking at his. "You didn't?"

"Ah . . ." He briefly peers down at his empty fingers as if he just noticed. "Actually—I thought . . . we might wait. You know. Until you've seen your doctor and gotten a prescription. I mean, it seems sort of . . . silly to rush. As if we don't have forever. Literally."

Claire studies him.

"But I don't want to wait," she states after a moment.

He sighs; his shoulders seem to drop an inch.

"Well, I don't, _either_, Claire," he admits as if, really, it should be obvious.

"Well then what—"

"It's just—"

"I don't get—"

"I—"

They talk over one another, haltingly, until he finally clamps his lips shut in annoyance as Claire, too, falls silent. He raises his eyebrows: _May I?_ And with equal sarcasm, she gestures for him to proceed.

"I don't know what you want," he rushes in a hushed voice. "I'm positive I'm going to come back with something ridiculous or—god only knows—not ridiculous enough. So if you would just—" Taking her shoulders, he pivots her and nudges her gently down the aisle. "—go and pick out whatever you want, that would be fantastic."

Claire snorts, stubbornly facing him once more.

"You're buying a box of condoms," she points out, "not a _house_. This really isn't the monumental decision you're making it out to be."

"Look, Claire, it doesn't . . ."

He trails off as his ears detect a familiar, masculine tone drifting over the shelf from the counter. _Thank you_, it's saying. Cocking his ear, he begins to drift curiously toward the end of the aisle, when Claire reaches out and clutches his sleeve in a suspiciously talon-like grip.

"Come on," she says, changing her tune all at once. "I haven't bought them in forever, either, you know—it's probably been even longer for me than you, come to think of it. Rob and me said goodbye to condoms the day we got married."

Reflecting on that, she scoffs.

"Or _I_ did, anyway. Doubt Rob was riding Sharon bareback . . . but never mind. I guess they still make the ribbed ones, don't they? Those were always fun."

"I suppose so . . ."

She tries and fails to swivel him into an about-face an instant before the thin, pale figure of Joshua Gallo strides into view.

Except . . . mm . . . _stride_ isn't really accurate. It's more of a preoccupied shuffle. With his head down, one hand ruffling his floppy bangs, he's far slower crossing the space from the pharmacy counter to the door than he has any right to be, leaving him in view long enough for Sylar to analyze him leisurely. In that time, he notes that Joshua is clutching a small white parcel at his side—some purchase from the pharmacy—and, more interestingly, that he appears to be a man in deep, distracted thought. As if he's trying desperately to dredge up some forgotten plan. Some stolen memory, perhaps.

Sylar suppresses a spiteful smile—_J the Stray is looking just about ready for the pound—_and turns back to Claire. Her eyes remain focused on Joshua until he's completely out of sight, through the door and past the window front.

"Did you speak to him?" he asks. What he really wants to say is _Did you introduce yourself?_ but he's trying to be nice here. He hasn't had many girlfriends, but he's sure you're not supposed to glory over a woman as if she's a slain enemy, not if you want her to go home with you. It _is_ tempting, though, when the other man is _right there_ and she's trying to conceal the fact.

"No," Claire replies softly, not looking at him. "I was just eavesdropping, is all. Frank called him while he was waiting on his prescription . . . He has headaches."

"Frank?" he asks with an innocent lift of his eyebrow.

"Don't be a bastard." She turns and wanders down the aisle, her fingers releasing their grasp on him, trailing lightly over his arm in a motion that seems more distant than affectionate. "_Joshua_. His doctor can't find anything wrong with him, thinks they might be migraines."

"Well, people _do_ have migraines, Claire. Your little friend wouldn't be the first."

"You screwed up his head," she accuses flatly. "He was fine before."

_Wouldn't be surprised, _Sylar agrees silently. It typically took several special visits from the Haitian to inflict significant damage . . . but the Haitian didn't make a habit of operating while in the firm grips of jealousy and blind rage. That Joshua may have been harmed by their little run-in is hardly inconceivable. All the same:

"How do you know he was fine?" he reasons. "How long did you know him? How _well _did you know him? Did you follow him around? Did you follow him _home?_"

Wait, _did_ she? He remembers his snide comment at The Chocolate Chipped Mug—_So that's the bedwarmer—_and wonders if it might have been truer than he realized at the time. The idea is a knife-twist to the stomach, all right, but he rides it out. Things are okay now—things are _good_ now. He wishes Claire would focus on the present, that she would let go of Joshua the same way she sometimes _seems _to have let go of Rutherford. If she can't, then _he_ can't, and he's trying.

"Of _course_ not," she replies in a tone dripping with dignity. "But I knew him well enough to know he didn't have chronic headaches."

"Maybe he was just having a good week. Maybe he didn't feel the need to give his latest conquest a complete rundown of his medical issues. Really, Claire-you hardly knew the boy, and you're acting as if he's your oldest friend. Which he most definitely is not."

In hopes of assuaging her growing irritation, he pulls her around and smoothes her hair back.

"That would be me," he adds with a smile.

_That would be highly optimistic of you, actually—I think you mean Micah_, Claire corrects inwardly. Well—unless he means _oldest _in the literal sense, in which case, yes, he's getting to be pretty goddamn ancient at this point. What is he, a centenarian by now? Rising up on her toes, she pulls his head down and gives him a quick kiss.

"You screwed up his head," she reiterates against his lips.

The utter certainty in the whisper—_I know it, you know it, let's not play games—_flows into him, and when he returns the kiss, it feels oddly like an admittance of guilt. Not a bad feeling, however, in this case. Confessions made in secret, solitary rooms are their own form of punishment, but when Claire's lips are involved . . . Well, there's something to be said for Claire's lips, the way they can turn a damnation into a blessing.

"You're not angry?" he asks as she pulls away and leads him back to that intimidating shelf. The blonde, bearded man is long gone, having absconded with his candied condoms. Claire plucks a box from the display and turns it over, reading the label.

"What's done is done," she answers, rather casually, and it isn't until she finds herself leaving the drugstore with their purchases in tow that she realizes she means it. She can't really say she's forgiven him or even _forgotten_ what he's done to Joshua and to others. But somehow, in the shameful recesses of her mind, all that destruction has become fair trade for the cuts that are even now bleeding into her socks as she steps out onto the sidewalk. She recalls her detour through the cold and flu aisle where she ran her fingers over all the boxes, hoping wayward germs might take hold for just a day, how she was so excited at the prospect she almost missed Joshua entirely. In the wake of her own gain, she is becoming desensitized toward the pain of others.

_You killed people I cared about_, she told him. And now they're nothing more than memories, _her_ memories alone, and look how she treats them. She rakes them all beneath some mental rug because their murderer can give her things. A smile here, a pleasant shudder there, a chance to experience normalcy . . .

Trinkets.

_Something sick is growing inside of me_, she assesses, and she wants to blame the man at her side for planting it there. She wants to _badly_ . . . but she just can't anymore. Noah's Claire Bear is a big girl now. Decisions, decisions, and all of them her own.

Sylar threads his fingers into hers, and she squeezes his hand.

[] [] []

Sylar cannot _believe_ what just came out of his mouth.

He lies beside Claire now, shaking in the aftermath, as well as in something very like humiliation. His arm is over his eyes; for the first time he can remember since he met her, he doesn't want to look at her. Having just gasped out the words near the climax of their embrace, he would now give anything to suck them back into his lungs. They must have been lying in wait at the back of his throat for days, he imagines, watching for the first opportunity to slip past his good sense.

The worst part, truly, is that there's a distinct lack of an echo. Claire doesn't say it back. Simply acts, in fact, as if she didn't even hear him.

God, how he wishes she didn't hear him.

_She _did_ though_, he laments inwardly . . . and a little angrily.

Claire really _ought_ to answer. It's just _rude_, that's what it is. Sylar grinds his teeth, contemplating the audacity of her silence. Her brush-off. Good lord, she could at least acknowledge it—give him a tight little smile, say _Oh, that's nice_. Something, for god's sake.

Her silence seems to increase in volume, his ire ratcheting up a notch with every soft, satisfied breath that puffs from her parted lips.

_I'll give it a year_, he decides rashly, though the thought makes his stomach churn slightly. He'll be done with her by then . . . he thinks. Surely to god.

So that's it. She has a year to age, and then he'll tell her, _Well, Claire Bear, it's been real. _And she'll respond, _Well, it's been _something, and disappear, extraordinarily pissed off beneath a resigned exterior. He won't see her again for a while.

The idea really shouldn't make him feel so gutted, but he allows it on the assumption that when the time comes, he'll be ready. The sex will slow down. He'll start feeling crowded, craving his old solitude (not that ever actually wanted that, but perhaps in time . . .). Maybe she'll get wrinkles or something. Shit, he doesn't know.

Sylar stares at her piercingly through the darkness, trying to imagine that if the room were lit, he could see hundreds of little lines criss-crossing her face. Crow's-feet when she smiles . . . She has such a nice smile, when it's genuine.

"I can feel you watching," Claire says suddenly, and he jumps.

"I'm not," he denies. "You're paranoid, you know that? Invincible and paranoid, that's quite a combination."

"You were staring," she insists, rolling over to curl against his front. "You breathe all slow and quiet when you're being weird, but it's not what you really sound like when you're asleep. You used to do it all the time when I was here before. Back when we were just _sleeping_ together, you know."

That's an embarrassing bit of information to learn about himself, but at the same time he finds it oddly gratifying that she's aware of such a silly, trivial quirk. It's like when his mother used to tell him to stop biting his nails, and he didn't even know he _was_ until she smacked his hand away from his mouth. He's been alone for so long, without anyone to chide or make fun of him, that he's lost sight of his own habits.

"What else?" he asks.

"Hm?"

"Tell me something else about me, something I don't know."

"Well . . . lemme see." She ponders, sighing pensively. "I already told you about the snoring . . ."

"Which I maintain is a malicious lie meant to ruin me."

"Hmm . . . You hold your breath when you come, did you know about that?"

He can feel his ears turning red, even as he considers that he might have done better this time to have held his breath the entire session. Saved himself the grief.

"Ah . . ." he replies. "Never mind."

They are quiet, and he strokes the tousled silk of her hair, petting her as if she were a kitten while she falls asleep against his chest. He lies awake for a long time, staring out into the room as his eyes adjust to the darkness.

Retreating into his mind, he reworks the situation, fiddling with it as he would the long-uncompleted German watch that occupied the final seven years of Gabriel's sorry life.

In his imagination, he doesn't say it, thank god. Doesn't think it, either, and they collapse against each other without a trace of awkwardness. Claire presses a palm against the side of his face as she's wont to do afterward, and her lips press against his lips, his cheekbone, his brow, and then he rests his head between her breasts and listens to the slowing of her heartbeat. He loves her.

No. _Shit_. No, he _doesn't_.

In his imagination, _she_ says it, and he disregards it entirely, maintaining a vindictive silence. In his periphery, hurt crosses her face. Something wells up in his chest unexpectedly, and he finds himself kissing her hard, too thoroughly for a kiss that isn't leading into anything more. A big, fat apology of a kiss.

And, spite be damned, he's saying it back and _then_ some. Elaborating like a fool as eighty years' worth of adoration spews out of him in one long, sickening geyser. He tells her that she's violence and tranquility, vice and innocence, rage and joy, chaos and stability, and every other thing necessary to his existence, all wrapped up in the most undeniably gorgeous package he's ever beheld. She's a timepiece he can't fix—wouldn't want to. He _needs_ her.

That's what he means, more than anything. _I love you_ is surprisingly easy to say, as it turns out, maybe because it carries considerably less weight in his mind. It just pops out, a positive thing, almost like paying a compliment—_Why, you look fabulous today. You know, I just _love_ you._

_I need you_ is a punch to the gut. It hurts. It makes it hard to breathe. And that part is not imaginary. Not in the slightest.

_A year_, he thinks again, and he scoffs slightly at his own absurdity. Who is he kidding?

[] [] []

Sylar cannot quite bring himself to meet her eyes that morning, but his obvious discomfort is entirely lost on Claire, who sits picking over her breakfast, inattentive. After using her fork to file all the golden brown crumbs off the surface of her toast, she finally places it on her plate with a clatter and pushes her chair back, standing.

"I'm going out," she declares bluntly. "Won't take long. I don't need you."

"What—where?" he inquires, frowning only slightly at her choice of words as he lifts his eyes to her face for what feels like the first time today.

"Oh, my stuff I got at the drugstore—they're the wrong brand. I don't like that kind. Don't know where my head was . . ."

And that familiar tingling sensation rolls up his torso.

He notices now that she seems as loath to look at _him_ as he is to look at her, that she has an air of hushed anxiety hanging about her. The already tense muscles of his neck and shoulders knot impossibly tighter.

_Listen, about last night, what I said, I didn't mean it—I mean, it's not so much that I didn't _mean_ it as it is I just didn't mean to _say _it, it just sort of, you know, popped out—not that I _did_ mean it, that is. You know. Ha. _

It's so eloquent, she'll _have_ to buy it. Perhaps he can get a good sweat going and knock his coffee into his lap for added credibility.

Claire snatches up her purse and the light jacket she picked up on their most recent outing. She was able, as it turned out, to retrieve _some _of her possessions from the hotel. It seemed the staff had no use for a ratty, generations-old cheerleading uniform, but the more desirable items (such as the olive green dress and a leather bag with a label that oozed expense) were mysteriously absent.

"Listen," he begins slowly, "about . . . um."

Ah, yes, that's how you get the ball rolling.

He clears his throat and tries again.

"Last night . . . I said something. Well, I guess you heard me. I didn't _intend_ to say it, and I feel like I shouldn't have—"

"Oh, my god," Claire mutters beneath her breath as she tugs the jacket over her blouse. Then, more audibly: "Listen. We were screwing. I get it, okay? People say stuff. I mean, I sure wasn't praying when I yelled _Oh, god_, you know? So let's . . . let's just forget it. No need to get all bent out of shape."

Sylar listens, a crease on his brow, and isn't certain whether he feels soothed or slighted. He's undeniably thrilled that his mistake is not going to become an enormous wedge between them . . . and yet there remains that nagging sense of umbrage, as if Claire is intentionally ignoring something of great import. Is she right to be so flippant, equating his declaration, inadvertent as it was, with her own passionate but meaningless exclamations?

_I said I _love_ you, god damn it! _he wants to snap. _I've never said that to—_

He blinks; a muscle in his jaw jumps.

"You're sure you don't want company?" he asks casually, leaving the remainder of his breakfast behind as he rises, taking his coffee with him. "You realize you have to be in range of me for the Haitian's ability to have any effect."

"Yeah, it occurred to me," she acknowledges, even as she leaves the kitchen and heads for the door. "But it's only a few minutes. Anyway, it's not like we can be together _all_ the time. I think that would drive _both_ of us crazy. Crazi_er_. Whatever."

He can't tell if the shot is aimed at him or at herself or both.

"Wrong brand, did you say?"

"Well—" She appears to think it over as she reaches for the doorknob. "I meant to get the regular, but I got the super for some stupid reason. Toxic shock . . . Guess that's something I have to worry about now."

And on that lying note, she takes her leave.

"Toxic shock," he repeats sardonically, staring at the door and swirling his coffee around, repressing an overpowering urge to transform into some nondescript figure and trail her. Instead, he wanders into his timepiece room and prods aimlessly at the innards of an antique cuckoo clock that stopped chirping decades before some callous grandchild decided the heirloom was both ugly and useless. He knows he could resurrect it if he dedicated himself, but his mind is swimming, tossed by waves of speculation and puzzlement.

There's a part of him, deep down (he wants it to float to the top, but it keeps sinking under the pressure of some suffocating sentiment), that rejoices at her lie. You can't love someone you can't trust. Elle is-was-a prime example. And you certainly don't _need_ such a person. That would be illogical, to say nothing of self-destructive—and Sylar's all about self-preservation. It's why he fixated on the young, golden cheerleader in the first place, all those many years ago when years still held some significance.

_People say stuff_, she said, and she's right. People do.

Claire returns in as little as fifteen minutes. She goes straight upstairs and spends an inordinate amount of time locked in the bathroom. The irrepressible paranoia in him speculates that she's washing someone's scent away—Joshua, for instance, that goddamned boy scout, she's got him all mixed up with Peter, and oh good _god_ how she adored _that_ son of a bitch—while his rationality reminds him again and again that it was _fifteen minutes_. She'd have to screw him in the alley up against the dumpsters to make such good time. Add in the necessary preamble (_Claire Bennet, lovely to meet you again; we had kind of a thing going before my psychotic boyfriend magically erased your memory, which totally makes sense if you read this book; here_), and he just doesn't see it happening.

But then, why lie?

[] [] []

Sylar cannot quite force himself to _want_ to control the electric anger that arcs through his chest when he nuzzles into her neck from behind and she says, "Don't."

It's not _I have a headache_. It's not _I'm not in the mood_. It's just . . . _Don't._ Terse and full of rejection, containing all the warmth she'd employ to repel a drunken come-on in a sleazy bar. Gabriel would have drawn away at once, confused and quietly devastated. Sylar doesn't appreciate being dismissed in so careless a manner.

He takes a moment, head tilted as he bites his bottom lip, noting how precariously she's balanced on the very edge of the mattress, as far away from him as she can get without tumbling onto the floor, before he succumbs to the pounding behind his eardrums. Digging his fingers into her arm, he flips her onto her back, none too gently.

"Honeymoon's over, I see," he snarls, looming above her. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Claire's face, rather than surprised or apprehensive, is merely pinched. There is impatience in her gaze.

"I'm tired," she tells him, "and I'd like to get to sleep, if you don't mind. Next time I'll be sure and write you up a report before declining, okay? But if you could just let me off the hook this one night, that'd be _awful_ sweet of you."

He glowers at her, trying to fathom this downturn in her attitude. Mere days ago he thought things were going well. One week goes by, and _this_ happens. And she asked for a year, at least-_she_ asked.

"I'm on the rag," Claire snaps when his grip fails to relax. "Is that blunt enough for you?"

A humorless laugh finds its way out of his throat.

"That's the second lie you've told me today," he says.

"You think I'm lying?" She smirks. "Did your stalking routine involve keeping track of my cycles, too? You got a little stack of calendars stashed somewhere?"

"No need." He doesn't really want to reveal his ability to detect dishonesty—it feels like an ace in the hole, somehow, more of a personality test than anything else—so, in crude explanation, he tacks on, "I've got a nose like a bloodhound."

"Well, how disgusting, not to mention _disturbing_ on a number of levels—"

He finds himself grabbing her chin roughly with the hand he isn't using to balance.

"You know me better than anybody in the world, _Claire Bear_. You know how I feel about liars."

Before his dark, slightly stunned eyes, the smirk spreads until it's a full blown, vaguely malicious grin. It would be beautiful if it weren't for the strange hollowness taking root in her eyes.

"No."

Taking hold of his wrist, she pushes his hand away from her face, and then keeps on pushing, hooking her leg back and planting her heel against his hip. He allows her to topple him over, and she rides along with the momentum, winds up straddling him. Still clutching his wrist, she bends his arm back over his head. Her hair falls, tickling his cheek, as she caresses him, stroking his earlobe with her index finger.

"I forgot. Remind me, how _do_ you feel about liars?" she encourages. "Hm? Do you like 'em better if they smell like peaches? Do you _love_ them?"

His lip curls, so she leans still closer and starts trailing little kisses over his skin, the line of his jaw, his pulse. He absolutely _hates_ that, despite the blistering fury amassing beneath his rib cage, he can still feel himself responding. _She_ can feel it, perched on him so snugly.

"Come on," she whispers against his ear, "I'm not tired anymore—and you're right, by the way, that period excuse was a load of shit. So come on."

Straightening, she rocks against him, just one single roll of her hips, and he inhales a sharp lungful of air through his teeth. She laughs.

"Tell me how much you hate being lied to." And she gives him a wink that he realizes she stole directly from _him_. "Then we'll see if I can get you to tell me you love me again."

Claire is immobile before the next beat of her heart. For good measure, he silences her hateful mouth.

Sylar pushes himself up, face to face and very nearly nose to nose with her.

"You . . ."

Insults fail him.

"Where did you go today—_really?_" he inquires coldly. He waits several seconds for an answer, until Claire rolls her eyes, and he remembers to release his hold on her tongue.

"You know I've been cutting myself to make sure I'm not getting ripped off?" she informs him blithely instead of answering. "Down on my feet—used your razor, too."

Clutching her behind the knees, he gives her a yank that sends her onto her back again. Grasping one slim, curved ankle, he takes in the dark gashes on her feet, the angry red skin raised up around them. Wants to tear them open anew, but knows she wouldn't feel it, so instead he simply allows them to heal. For her, he knows, that's the more painful form of retribution, anyway.

"So much for your nose, I guess," she cracks. "See, we just don't trust each other at all, do we now?"

His face is hurt but hard and determined when he bends over her once more.

"Where did you go?" he demands slowly, deliberately.

"Well, I wasn't buying tampons."

She tries to look triumphant, infuriating, but her chin begins to tremble. That bizarre emptiness in her eyes grows, swells, and splits open. A watery outrage spills free.

"_I'm pregnant with your goddamn mutant monster baby!_" Claire spits, livid.

Shocked, he instantly looses his telekinetic grasp, and her palms come up, shoving painfully hard into his chest. He falls back, kneeling in the center of the bed.

"And now what?" she shrieks, shoving him again as if it's all his fault before disentangling herself from the sheets and leaping off the mattress. In the middle of their bedroom, she stands facing him, disheveled, fuming, and quite clearly grieving for something she hasn't even lost yet. "Best case scenario, I give birth to the next . . . well, the next _you_, for god's sake! Hey, congratulations! But that's not even gonna happen, is it? No, because you can't—" Her face twists as she fumbles for words, gesturing toward him accusingly. "You fucking _killed_ people for all that shit, and you can't even . . . _Shit!_"

Striking out at the wall, she whirls and exits the room. Sylar, never a fan of the _give her some space_ mentality, jumps up and follows her, his legs liquid-like, his heart thudding. In the sitting room, Claire pauses before a shelf, one fist pressed against her mouth and an open palm across her flat abdomen, where he likes to kiss and nip beneath the navel and where even now a life is blossoming.

"Claire," he says to her back. "_Claire_."

Nothing. Sylar squares himself.

"I'm going to make you a promise," he declares. "If it falls through, then hell, you've got forever to hold it against me—and we both know you can do it. But, Claire . . . If it _kills_ me . . . if I have to stay awake for nine months straight . . . you are going to have this goddamn mutant monster baby."

The noise she makes could be a laugh or a sob or some wrenching hybrid.

"I bet it has hooves," she remarks, waveringly, after a short silence.

Because it means she believes him, he smiles. Loves her.


	24. State of Wakefulness

"It happened around 15 weeks, every single time," Claire remembers in a reflective tone. Her hand snakes down to stroke her lower abdomen, and because it cups as if to accommodate a bump that isn't there, he knows she's remembering the other ones. The lost ones. "Right when I was starting to show."

As if her body had spent months eyeing the multiplying mass of cells warily, grudgingly, and at this presumptuous expansion decided, _Nuh-uh, this has gone far enough_. Then came the cramps, the little butterfly wings that elongated into daggers.

"So until then, everything was . . ?"

"Fine," she confirms. Smiles wistfully. "We turned one of the guest bedrooms into a nursery. When we lost the first one, all that stuff went into storage, and then Rob brought it back out again the second time. We were dumb like that. Third time, I just said don't bother. I think he was relieved."

Sylar is sitting on the couch beside her, elbow up on the backrest and one leg folded before him so he can face her. Reaching out, he nudges his fingertips beneath hers to graze the skin of her stomach.

"You can't feel it," she tells him. "At this point, it's barely even there."

"But it is _there_." And now so is she—for a long, long time.

_If_ he can stay awake.

Funny that he said _If I have to_—not _If I can._

Because as the days trickle by, he becomes increasingly concerned that he _can't_. Oh, it's not that he couldn't survive it. Sylar is fairly certain he could go years without eating and never succumb to starvation; that he could swear off all sources of H2O and weather the effects like a pro.

But he'd still be _hungry._ Thirsty.

Therein lies his problem. His body is quite capable of carrying on without sleep for several months without yielding to exhaustion. It just doesn't _want _to. It's the same problem he has with his pain faculties: there's no real point to it anymore, but banging his shin still hurts like a mad bastard.

Which, as a matter of fact, is one of the lovely ways his dilemma asserts itself: pain.

One morning, following a triumphantly sleepless series of nights, he walks smack into the bathroom door. Bounces his face off of it like a basketball and staggers backward, dazed.

"Mmph! _Shit!_" he curses, and then snaps at Claire for leaving the door open at such a, well, _hazardous_ angle.

"Um, _sorry_," she apologizes from the couch with maximum sarcasm, eyebrow raised. "I was so busy _vomiting my guts up_ I clean forgot to roll out the red carpet for you once I was done."

He doesn't reply, and he looks rather pitiful standing there with one hand clutching his nose, his eyes watering beneath his tensed brow. Claire remembers what he's doing for her and instantly wishes she'd been nicer.

"Come here . . . I'm sorry," she reiterates with more sincerity. She goes to him and reaches up to tug his hand away. "Let me see. Does it really hurt?"

_No, Claire Bear. It feels fucking _fabulous_. I think I'll do it again, see if I can get my nose to come out the back of my head this time._

"It's fine," he mutters grumpily, pushing her hand down.

And thank _god_ it's fine, he thinks as he turns into the bathroom, leaving Claire simultaneously remorseful and offended. Speaking strictly in terms of vanity, the last thing in the world he needs is for his nose to swell up even _bigger_.

Back in high school—_Oh, there were some good times, _he reflects with a roll of his eyes—it was typical for some jock to throw the annual Halloween party. Gabriel never got an invite, because he was, well . . . you know . . . Gabriel. So he was understandably bemused one following Monday when several of his so-called peers thumped him in the back or ruffled his immaculately parted hair and commented on his appearance at the party. It came out later from one of his clients (he sometimes wrote essays for money, ten bucks a page, dear god please don't let Mom find out she'll garrote me with a rosary) that John Michels had gone as Gabriel Gray. The costume consisted of a sweater vest over a button-down, slacks, a fair amount of hair cream, and to tie it all together, a pair of Groucho Marx glasses with the moustache removed. It was a wild success.

Gabriel stayed pissed off for months.

Sylar is pissed off _now_, just thinking about it. And he hasn't thought about it in decades. Why would he? Why is he now? It occurs to him that he's been generally pissed off for the last couple of days—at Claire, at himself, even at people who have been out of his life so long he can't quite remember their faces. Like Michels. And for no real reason, just . . .

God, he's _tired._

The hot water feels good, though. Actually a little too good. Feels like a nice rain in the midst of a particularly sweltering summer . . . His eyelids are getting heavy. He cuts the hot water off, and the icy water shocks his consciousness into overdrive for a moment. Ten minutes later, it takes him a few irritated strokes to realize he's shaving with the wrong edge of his razor.

Only eight more months to go.

Well, technically it won't be necessary to be awake full-time until a little before 15 weeks, since Claire said that was invariably when her body rejected the fetus. But he wants to get this figured out now, so that when the crucial time comes, he'll be able to sail through without fear of failure.

He promised. He told her promises didn't mean anything, and then he promised, and now he knows he was wrong. Promises mean everything.

Weeks go by, and he's sucking down coffee like it's actually going to do something for him. Realistically, he knows it isn't. But there's a part of him that accepts it as a sort of psychological crutch. He feels more alert when he's sipping the strong, black liquid, when he's inhaling the steam and the earthy scent. It's not a cure, but as a temporary placebo, it's serviceable.

Conversely, Claire has been taken with an overwhelming craving for tea. Not just any tea, no, she wants good old sweet tea, Texas style, just like Mother used to make. Sylar remembers Sandra's tea. It was astoundingly saccharine; he half expected his teeth to rot right out of his head while he sat there and sweet talked her and scratched her dog behind the ears and inadvertently convinced her he was some sort of creepy sex predator with a pom pom fetish. Woops.

He sits by, chin in his hand, coffee before him, and watches with weary interest as Claire shovels ungodly amounts of sugar into the crystal pitcher. Must be a family recipe.

"You're really going to drink that," he states.

"I am," she agrees, stirring it all up with a long, wooden spoon.

"Good lord."

Claire laughs.

"That would put you in a diabetic coma if you weren't immortal," he insists.

"You're not from the South," says Claire. "If you were a Southerner, you'd be salivating right now. You never sat on the porch on a summer evening, sipping a big, tall glass of sweet tea, with the ice cubes clunking around in the glass, and everything smelling like honeysuckle . . ."

She sounds so nostalgic, and suddenly he's filled with envy. He can just see her, in the midst of her happy-crappy little childhood, skipping around picking purple clover and playing fetch with the dog and hopping up on the porch swing to have a glass of tea with Ma and Pa Devoted. She was probably spooning homemade ice cream into her mouth while _he_ was sitting in Big Jim's, naively convinced that losing his favorite Hot Wheels car was the worst thing that was going to happen to him that day. _Hysterical_.

_She wasn't even _born_ then, _voices his inner reason, but he ignores it. That's not the point.

Of course, she could just as well be referring to the time she spent _married_ in Texas. But that hardly puts a salve on the jealousy. She _still_ hasn't said _I love you. _She's pregnant with their child; you'd think she'd say it on principle. Or she'd get all hormonal and emotional, and it would just pop out accidentally, and she'd regret it later, but too damn bad, she already said it. No takesies backsies.

"We never had a porch," he says, before he gets too worked up. _Worked up, that's a laugh._ "Unless you count the fire escape." Which he doesn't, since fitting a swing out there would be pretty problematic.

"Well, there you go." And then she's dumping ice cubes into her glass, where the hot tea decimates them at once. She shoves the glass toward him. "Taste."

"Ah—no. Thank you."

"Come on. You might be surprised."

"I'm sure I'd be absolutely flabbergasted, but no."

"Please . . ?"

Huffing, he takes a reluctant sip. It's syrupy in his mouth. Sandra's kind offering of misplaced gratitude all over again. She _seemed_ like the kind of mother who might make homemade ice cream. Virginia wasn't big on ice cream. Ice cream was _bad_. Everything was bad to some degree or another. Except Gabriel. Gabriel was so damned wonderful nothing was ever good enough. Gabriel was worth _every penny_.

"It tastes like someone liquefied a pecan pie," Sylar appraises unkindly, handing the glass back to her. To kill the taste, he drinks more coffee. More and more and more . . .

That evening, Claire wants to go somewhere where they can get a slice of pecan pie. He almost suggests the Chocolate Chipped Mug but catches himself in time. Although, now that he considers it, it has the potential to be quite funny, providing Frank remembers the two of them well enough.

Short story condensed, they don't go to the Chocolate Chipped Mug.

It's at Margo's, a lovely little eatery with comfort food leanings, that Claire gets her dessert. He orders peach pie a la mode, but sits in the booth picking at it. Even peach pie annoys him today. Elle , trying to pass herself off as an amateur baker . . .

"It's not working, is it?"

Claire's voice is quiet. He looks up to see that she's put her fork down and is staring at him with soft, apprehensive eyes.

"Hm?"

"You look like you're about to fall over," she tells him honestly.

He forces a small chuckle, rubbing at his forehead.

"I just need to get used to it," he counters. "The first month was a rough patch, but I think I'm staring to adjust, so . . . " He sits back abruptly, determined to change the subject. "_You're_ okay, right? I mean, I know Dr. Gillen said everything was coming along smoothly with the baby, but how are _you?_"

"Um . . ' Claire shrugs. "Fine. You know. I mean, I never had a stomach virus growing up, so morning sickness is an experience, all right, but it's nothing I can't handle. Mood swings every now and then, they . . . suck. Start thinking about stupid stuff . . ."

"Like what?"

"Well, come on." She retrieves her fork and begins polishing off the rest of her pie. "You and me haven't aged in over half a century. We've got a lot to think about, and most of it's bound to be stupid. That's just how life works."

"I guess." He supposes she's right, in a way. Before he committed himself to a near nine-month state of wakefulness, the little struggles and hiccups in life _seemed_ important, but looking back . . . Well, maybe they were stupid, but stupid wasn't so bad. He could _sleep_ when things were merely stupid.

Speaking of stupid, his big slip-up occurs when they're leaving. Stepping out onto the sidewalk, the air feels unexpectedly crisp, and Sylar realizes he's left his jacket in the booth. With a complete absence of forethought, he toes the door back open and sticks his arm in. At his instinctive beck, the jacket slides around the table and zips through the air into his waiting grasp. He tugs it on, heaving a weary sigh, and blinks at Claire's expression of horror.

"Wh-?" he begins, and then it hits him.

Turning, he finds ten pairs of eyes staring blatantly through the windowpane. _Ten people_ who just witnessed his idiotically open display of telekinesis and are now sitting dumbfounded.

Claire fits her hand into his. He looks down at her. Her lips tremble indecisively for an instant. Then:

"One minute," she says firmly.

"What?" His brow furrows.

"That's all you need to take away." Her eyes dart to the ten who have begun to murmur amongst themselves. "One minute—two at the most."

He stares at her, stunned, half certain some misunderstanding has passed between them.

"You want me to-?" he begins, but she interrupts, pushing him toward the door.

"Hurry!" she pleas. "Or it'll be more."

So he returns to Margo's. Claire stands outside, turning her back as the cheery, checked curtains fall over the window, shielding the scene within.

It feels good. He won't deny that. Once he shuts the curtains, he kills the lights for good measure. He's _sick_ of lights, and the sudden darkness is soft and blissful on his pupils. And he rather enjoys the scent of fear in the air, the way it intensifies when he immobilizes them. One by one, he steals their memories, just that little space of time Claire calculated. They deserve it, really, for looking so well-rested.

When he meets Claire on the street once more, he fully expects her to be cold toward him, disgusted both at her own request and his willingness to fulfill it. And she _is_ silent as they abscond, partners in crime.

"I suppose they won't miss a couple minutes out of their lives," he remarks finally. She'll call him callous now, ask him why he had to do something so goddamned silly in the first place, otherwise she never would have even _considered _stooping to his level.

"Thank you," she says. Glancing down sharply, he sees that her entire face is awash in gratitude. For an instant, he fancies there's another emotion present, as well. Stepping closer as they reach the curb, he holds her gaze, determined to coax it out of her. Why not? He's feeling a bit more on his game after the fun in Margo's. If he can rip 120 seconds of somebody's life away, surely he can pull three little words out of this woman.

"You know, Claire Bear, I—"

The yawn that blindsides him is immense, stretching his face to epic proportions. Claire giggles, and while he doesn't hate the sound, the moment is effectively broken.

Not that she seems to mind. In the cab, she slides against him. Puts her hand over his knee and runs her index finger back and forth.

Claire is somewhat amazed at how, well . . . _horny_ she's been for the last few weeks. She didn't know pregnancy would do that to a woman, but when she confided in Dr. Gillen, the obstetrician laughed her rosy-cheeked laugh and told her it was typical. Claire doesn't want to tell Sylar she can't get enough of him these days—boosting his ego any higher might crack what's left of the ozone—but she figures he's probably caught on by now, anyway. One does, when one is jumped nearly every morning, night, and some afternoons. At this point, they've messed around in every room but the one where he works on his watches, and the only reason Claire hasn't made a play for that one is the fact that the damned table is so cluttered. She imagines if the watches—sorry, _timepieces —_were somehow swept off in a fit of passion, he'd spaz right the hell out. _Odd_ little quirk, for a man so careless with human lives.

They wind up on the floor in the sitting room, a popular spot on occasion. Claire is feeling particularly ravenous, and she would like to believe this accounts for the full minute it takes her to realize he's gone uncharacteristically immobile. Flipping her hair back and pulling up from where she's been slowly-and quite tantalizingly, if she says so herself-kissing a path down his abdomen, she discovers he's checked out.

She straddling the man's thighs, and he's asleep.

"Hey . . !" But she says it quietly, and when she reaches out to tap his face, she ends up merely touching it, sliding her thumb over his skin. His lashes flutter slightly, but he doesn't wake, only turns into her touch.

Claire swallows. Finds a knot in her throat. Her eyes are burning. There's a deep, bitter well of disappointment in her chest, and it's not due to the interrupted intimacy.

She eases off him and tiptoes from the room. When she returns a few minutes later, she spreads a blanket over him. It makes her think of the baby blankets Sandra kept her whole life, the ones with little pastel bears and cowboys on them. She wonders what ever happened to them, and hopes that, somehow, they found their way back to the cradle.

[] [] []

He awakens to the sensation of the hard floor ramming up into his shoulder blades. Blinks groggily at the ceiling. Comprehends, and bolts upright.

"Ah, god, how long was I-?" He tries to stand, but his legs are all twisted up in a blanket. He blinks down at the soft blue fabric encircling his limbs. Kicking it away, he rises, aware that he's very nearly naked. How'd all this come about, then?

Mentally retracing his steps, he remembers that he and Claire went out for dessert, and there was that screw-up at the restaurant, and on the way back she started groping him and biting his earlobe in the cab, and when they got home she stopped, dropped, and made a little come-hither gesture and _oh shit. _

This demands all _sorts_ of apologies.

He finds her downstairs, sitting at the kitchen table with a book. She looks up as he enters, still in the process of pulling on a black tee with the jeans he's donned. The smile on her lips looks fake and empty.

"Morning," she greets. Glancing at the clock over the doorway, she amends, "Well, evening, actually."

Ironically, it's this complacency on her part that slaughters all intention of apologizing.

"Claire—how long was I out?" he asks, voice low.

"Almost twenty-four hours," she replies with an impressed lift of her eyebrows. "Sorry about leaving you on the floor, but you were pretty much dead to the world. I even tripped over you once, in the middle of the night. You just snored and said something about snowglobes."

"Why . . ?" Sylar begins to pace the length of the table. "Why—why are you behaving as if nothing is wrong? This is completely . . ."

His chest seems to be constricting. Claire stares at him steadily over her book. It looks like _Romeo and Juliet_. He sort of wants to knock it out of her hands.

"God . . ._ damn_ it, Claire!" And suddenly, he cracks, color rising in his face. "Why would you just _let_ me—when I'm—when we're—! I mean, you _do_ understand that this is _kind_ of difficult, right?"

He can't even be proud of himself for getting out that coherent sentence, because Claire lowers her eyes, and it looks like she might be gritting her teeth.

"Help me out, here, Claire! Kick me in the head—stab me! You enjoy that, right? Do _something_, don't just let me lie there like . . ."

Trailing off, he pauses directly before her, palms against the table top.

"It's like you're this ticking time bomb," he admits, tone dropping. "I am trying _very hard_ to keep this from blowing up in our faces."

"Well—don't." Claire slaps her book face down in front of her.

"_Don't?_" he throws back incredulously.

"I'm thinking maybe this isn't meant to be, after all," she declares, her voice hard. Pushing her chair back, she stands, striding past him. "Ever since we made this damn arrang—this damn deal, I feel like I barely know who I am anymore. And _you_—well, look at you. You've been shuffling around like a zombie, _completely_ exhausted—"

"Which doesn't _hurt_ me!" he reminds her, catching her shoulder to bring them face to face. He waves a hand. "Immortal, remember? I think we may have discussed it at some point?"

Stepping back a bit, he eyes her up and down, lingering over her still-flat stomach.

"And what do you mean, you don't know who you are? Since when do _you_ have identity crises?"

Claire laughs sharply.

"Oh, I don't know, maybe since I shacked up with a serial killer," she suggests.

His nostrils flare.

"Is that all I am?" he demands. And then with a rueful grin, "Is that all you're ever going to let me be?"

She once accused him of having no regard for the lives she had carried and wasted inside of her. What does it _take?_

"You know, I meant it when I said I loved you," he tells her, "even though it was a goddamned _ridiculous_ thing to say. I don't even know _why_ I love you. It's not your personality, I can tell you that much."

Claire rolls her eyes and reaches up to nervously rearrange a tendril of hair.

"What do you want?" she asks. "You want me to say it back—is that it?"

"No," he answers with a bitter smirk. The truth, of course, is _yes_—but he doesn't want to feel the lie powering the words. "To be honest with you, Claire Bear, I'm beginning to doubt you're even capable."

With that, he backs off, treading upstairs to retrieve his jacket from the couch where he left it nearly a full day earlier. Claire is waiting at the foot of the staircase when he returns.

"Where are you going?" she asks.

"Out," he replies shortly. "I will _not_ fall asleep again."

She shakes her head, and he notes the red-rimmed state of her eyes, knows that she was crying while he dreamt in the sitting room.

"Have you considered," she wonders, "that maybe it's just good ol' providence who doesn't want me to have a baby? You're the one who believes in fate and all that shit."

"So fate gets a big sadistic kick out of making Claire Bennet miscarry?" He scoffs in disdain. "You don't really believe that."

"It doesn't matter if I believe it. It's what's happening."

"It's _not_. Going. To happen."

Sylar leaves, slamming the door as if it has done him some grave personal wrong.

[] [] []

Night has fallen when he arrives home, following a shopping spree of sorts. Claire isn't downstairs, and he's glad. For a brief moment, he considers going up, anyway—he didn't shower after waking on the floor, and now he feels grimy—but he decides to tackle the issue at hand first. So he locks himself in his timepiece room, utilizes the Haitian's ability to tweak his healing ever so slightly, and proceeds to swallow a truly massive cocktail of various stimulants.

Minutes pass. He sits at his desk, fidgeting, foot tapping the floor. The mass ticking dies away slightly beneath a pounding rhythm behind his eardrums. He imagines it's the rapid heartbeat of a developing child in utero. To distract himself from this disturbing fantasy, he drums his fingers on the desk, then reaches for a watch and begins to pry it open with unsteady hands. Doesn't really help.

"It's _your_ heartbeat, jackass," a dry, vaguely disgusted voice informs him. "You're stoned. Obviously."

Sylar flinches, and his grasp slips, sending the antique spinning like a quarter off the edge of the work table. It strikes the floor, and the face cracks audibly.

"Oh, _beautiful!_" snaps the voice. "Well . . ."

A tall figure stoops at Sylar's side, dark head bent while he touches the broken timepiece gingerly with the tip of one long finger, as if the object might cry out or cringe away in agony. When it does neither, Gabriel Gray looks up into the paling face of his counterpart.

"We can fix it, right?"


	25. The Past Is A Pipe Dream

Well, it's happened. Sylar has cracked.

And not _cracked_ in his favorite _let's smash it with a blunt object and run off with all the nice gooey things inside_ kind of way. No, this is _cracked_ in the other sense, as in _hallucinations_, Doctor, auditory _and_ visual, thank you very much. As in, _Jeez, you sure you want to just _give_ me this tight white jacket with the chic little padlock in back? It looks expensive._

"Oh, my god," he mutters. "Oh, my god."

And is the room spinning? He feels as if he's seated on the tip of a whirling second hand, with Gabriel perched on the axis, glaring at him.

"Calm down," Gabriel suggests, turning the watch over in his palm, running his thumb over the face and feeling the crack edge over the ridges in his fingerprint. "It's just the pills you took."

He picks up the bottle and rattles it before Sylar's face. Or maybe he doesn't, because when Sylar glances over at the table, the bottle is still there, on its side with the cap off. But then he looks back, and Gabriel's examining it, sniffing at the rim as if he'd have any idea. What a joke.

"You know," Gabriel says, one eyebrow drifting above his thick black frames, "if you hadn't killed Mom already, this would probably do it."

He pitches the bottle at Sylar, who blinks and makes no attempt to catch it. It lands on the table, on its side, by the cap. Or maybe it simply disappears. In any case, the duplicate bottles are once again a single, solid entity.

"I'm a little disappointed, myself," admits Gabriel, sticking his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "You've gone from crazy to crazy and pathetic. And I thought _you_ felt sorry for _me._"

"Sorry for you?" Sylar echoes, with a valiant attempt to scoff. "Please. You were beneath pity."

"Says the lowly cockroach," Gabriel mutters, before reasoning, "You've been thinking about me a lot lately. Big Jim's, John Michels . . . Elle. If it's not pity, what is it? Maybe you're just trying to distract yourself from the issue at hand, is that it? This ungodly _mess_ you've gotten yourself into?"

"What are you talking about? I've got it all under control, I'm—"

"Failing miserably, I know. It's a shame, too. This whole situation, this little experiment in domesticity you two have been running, it's just precious."

Gabriel laughs at him. _Gabriel_ laughs at _him. _It seems so ludicrous that Gabriel Gray-who comported himself with an air of perpetual apology, as if his very existence was somehow offensive-should laugh at _anybody_. And yet he was always hardest on himself, so perhaps it's appropriate, after all.

Nevertheless, heat floods Sylar's face, and his temples tingle.

"What would _you_ know about it?" he snaps contemptuously. "The only woman you ever lived with was _Mom_. Please—remind me if I'm forgetting somebody."

"No, you've got me there," Gabriel admits, unbothered. It's not exactly a point he can argue. He was even careful with the attractive women who ventured into his shop, careful with how he looked at them, because he had an odd (unfulfilled) phobia that one might see him looking and misunderstand. That she would think he was, well, _looking_. So he was very practiced in keeping both his tone and his gaze professional, unaffected. Sexless.

"Beautiful women _paralyzed_ you," Sylar ruthlessly drives home the point. "You couldn't even have spoken to Elle if she hadn't come onto you like some kind of school girl straight out of a porno film."

"Well, we always did have a thing for school girls, didn't we? Never quite shook it, from the looks of it," Gabriel jabs back, tone filled to the brim with implications. "I think it's because we never got laid in high school, what do you think?"

"I would really, _deeply_ appreciate it if you'd go away."

"That's probably why you got such a kick out of toying around with Claire," he continues. "She was just another cheerleader with something you wanted, but for the first time in our life, you had the power to take it. _She_ was scared of _you_. And you liked it. A little too much, if you ask me . . . but I won't go there."

"That's all in the past," Sylar insists. "Claire and I are fine now."

"Oh, really? Because, correct me if I'm mistaken, but you still haven't managed to wrangle an _I love you_ out of her."

Sylar fidgets, his expression a clear admittance of guilt.

"I shouldn't have said it first," he grumbles. "You _never_ say it first. It makes you the weaker person. Even _I_ knew-"

"She wasn't going to say it, you moron."

"She might have," Sylar argues hopefully. "Eventually."

"Never," Gabriel says firmly. "Not _ever_, in a million years. You've done too much. There's no such thing as the past, not really. Nothing ever goes away." He gestures at himself. "The evidence is right in front of you."

"What did I ever do that was _so_ unforgivable?" Sylar asks bitterly.

"You're _joking_."

"I—"

"You killed her friend." Gabriel lifts a hand and begins ticking Sylar's offenses off on his fingers.

"Who? The cheerleader? Come on, she was a—"

"You killed half her parents, and she's got more than most."

"I left her a pair."

"Not for lack of trying."

Sylar shrugs**.** Bygones.

"You sliced her head open and molested her brain—"

"_Whoa, _whoa, now, hold on . . ."

"—and then had the audacity to come onto her."

"I _wasn't_ coming onto her! Wait, you're talking about the Stanton, right?"

Gabriel rolls his eyes.

"Right," Sylar continues. "I told her already, that was just—it was a game. A joke."

"A joke. That makes sense. It's too bad you stopped just short of humping her leg, because that would have been _hilarious._ _Building bridges_. Colorful way of phrasing it."

"How _dare_ you—"

"And all this before she turned eighteen. So, it all winds down with your little _rescue_, which is what we'll call your lame excuse to kidnap her, after which you got her fired and erased her new friend's memories out of spite. And what happens next? Hm? Anyone?"

Sylar blinks. Gabriel slams his palm down on the table. Nothing rattles. Sylar, however, jumps, his heart lurching into his throat. He'd almost forgotten how hard it's pounding in his chest.

"You _still _get her into bed! Quite frankly, bravo. But here's my point, _Sylar_." He leans in. "Did you really think all that history was contributing to a _healthy_ relationship? Did you think you were on a roll or something? Everyone has a breaking point. I mean, look at _us_. You have to assume that _this_ is hers. If she loses that kid, you become utterly useless. Just. Like. Me."

He wants to believe the shudder is a product of the stimulants. He doesn't.

"And it's bye-bye Claire Bennet. See you on the other side of forever."

Gabriel pauses to let it sink in.

"But you know all that, don't you? You know what I think? Do you?"

"No, and I don't give a flying f—"

"I think you're failing on purpose."

Sylar's face contorts in disgusted incredulity.

"How can you say that?" he demands.

"Easily. _Jealousy_. It all comes down to jealousy."

"Of what?" He scoffs. "What, the baby? The one that isn't even _born_ yet?"

"Uh, _yeah_." Gabriel lifts an eyebrow, and Sylar wonders if he looks so god damned bookishly arrogant when he pulls that move himself. He wants to slug the smug little prick in the face, but he can't, because the smug little prick is _him_. On top of which, he's not sure he's really there.

_God_, he's confused. He wants to put his head down on the table and go to sleep, escape it all, but that's what put him in this mad situation in the first place.

"Why not?" Gabriel expounds. "You're acting as if jealousy is a foreign emotion to you, or one you only feel in so-called _appropriate_ situations. The fact is, you spent most of your childhood and adolescence turning green with envy—"

"_You_ did," Sylar corrects accusingly, his head snapping up.

"_Fine_," Gabriel allows, and the two men who are, in fact, one man stare each other down for a few seconds. At last, he continues, "And it never stopped. Let's be honest—it's worse where Claire Bennet is concerned, isn't it? You get within a mile of her, and it ratchets your envy straight through the roof."

"That's ridiculous." His voice lacks conviction.

"Sure . . . That's why you went all _Haitian_ on that coffee shop kid. You just couldn't _stand_ it if she had an ally who wasn't you."

"Ally, my ass," Sylar sneers. "He was trying to get in her pants."

"_You_ were trying to get in her pants!"

"That's . . . different."

"Why, because _you_ were the one who deserved it? Because you stalked her for—" Gabriel pauses to flick a glib glance at the broken watch. "What is it, going on eighty years now? That's dedication, all right." He smiles at his scowling counterpart. "If she was a bird, you'd keep her in the nicest cage you could find. And if she pecked you when you tried to hold her, you'd feel betrayed. Isn't that right?"

Sylar is squirming with anger and—what is that? _Exposure_. He wants to throw it back at Gabriel, grab the back of his head and rub his spectacles into it.

"That's—that's a nice bird analogy," he says. He smirks. "That's very _Dad_ of you."

Gabriel's nostrils flare, but the smile remains, steadfast.

"You said it, not me," he returns. "I'd almost forgotten how jealous _of_ her you've always been. Is that what it's really about, then? Our unhappy history?"

Sylar shifts his shoulder and faces forward, away from this incredibly annoying apparition. His fingers feel restless, like they want to wrap around a throat and squeeze until someone blacks out. Even if it's _him_. Maybe _especially_ if it's him.

"Does she know?" Gabriel asks in that snide, knowing tone. "Did you sit her down and tell her all about Mom and Dad? Cry in her lap and all that?"

"_Screw-you-god-I-hate-you_," Sylar breathes in a rush, dropping his forehead into his hands. Then, with feeble, desperate dishonesty, he swallows and says: "She saw my photo album. With the picture of Mom and me. So I think that renders your entire point pretty much moot."

"Right, because the picture you're talking about is the one of our _real_ mother, taken right after our _real_ father killed her with that little move you perfected thirty-odd years later, oddly enough without even realizing you were—"

"_Shut up!_" Sylar half-screams, whirling to face Gabriel once more, but he isn't there. Looking across the work bench, he finds him sitting on the opposite side. "Get. Your god damned _feet_. Off my table!"

"It's my table," Gabriel replies in a low, even tone. "It's my room. You should have let me sleep. Do you still feel sorry for me, you jealous, serial-murdering sad sack?"

If he weren't so hopped up on pills, his shoulders might sag in defeat. As it is, Sylar's mouth works soundlessly for a moment.

"What do you want?" he finally gets out. "Why are you here?"

Gabriel's face twists. The timidity inherent in the watchmaker's features is overridden by something dark and hateful. To Sylar, who has experience in such matters, it looks a lot like murder.

_Is this how I looked right before I killed Brian Davis . . ?_ he wonders. He hopes not. What a god damned _goofy_ final sight.

"_You_," Gabriel begins slowly, "are _ruining_ everything I ever wanted. Everything _we_ ever wanted. You have the power, the significance. You have the immortality. You have _her_. You've got the life I always wanted, and you're letting it slip like sand through your useless fingers. When all you've got to do is snap them, and everything's back in place."

"It's not that easy."

"Oh, yes. It is." Gabriel drops his feet to the floor and rises. "Move your ass. Get away from _my_ timepieces. Go save your kid."

"_How?_" For god's sake, what is this four-eyed idiot blathering about?

"_How?_" Gabriel repeats incredulously. As if in awe of Sylar's stupidity, he removes his glasses, shuts his eyes, and pinches the bridge of his nose. He answers in a tone of slow explanation: "Someone out there can't sleep tonight. He—she—_it_—has a very chronic, very _bizarre_ case of insomnia. You can help."

He opens his eyes, looks pointedly at Sylar.

"You can fix it."

In dumb response, Sylar's mouth drops open.

"Are you actually saying what I—? Shouldn't you be telling me to, I don't know . . . repent or something? Let Claire go, turn off my abilities, and die in atonement?"

Frustrated, Gabriel rakes his fingers through his hair. It sticks up, askew.

"Who are you confusing me with?" he demands. "_Mom? _Have you even been listening to me? You know, I brought us here. I _made_ you. And like it or not, we _are_ the same machine. I'm Gabriel—you're Gabriel 2.0. And I—"

For the first time, he halts and glances off at the wall, clearly uncomfortable.

"What?" Sylar demands.

"I like her, too," Gabriel admits with a nonchalant shrug, face burning. "Even if she _never_ . . ."

Shaking his head as if to clear it, he steps back. Gestures toward the door.

"Go do the voodoo that you do so well. And Sylar?"

"What?"

"_Einai kalitero anthrop apo ton Patera tou._"

Sylar stares dumbly for a moment. Then:

"The hell?"

"It's _Greek. _My god, you've got Greek books in your shelves. You _read_ Greek."

"Well, not when I'm high as a kite."

"Oh, never mind. You can be so hopeless sometimes. Just . . . don't lop Claire's head off in front of the kid, okay? Or, you know, at _all?_ Don't pawn him for a quick buck, don't make a late night cigarette run and forget the way back, just don't be . . ."

"Dad."

"Right." Gabriel swallows. So does Sylar. They stare at each other darkly. "Either one of them."

Sylar isn't certain when Gabriel takes his leave, or how. The cacophonous symphony of his pulse swells still louder in his ears, and he looks away, losing himself in it. He sees visions behind his eyelids, the mad flickerings of a projector over which he has no control. Things he hates. Faces. Things he could have been. Things he doesn't _want_ to be.

"Maybe you're right," he murmurs after the display ends. "Maybe the past is just a pipe dream, and nothing ever really goes a-"

But the watchmaker is gone, and when Sylar bends to retrieve the damaged piece from the floor, he finds it already encased in his fingers.

[] [] []

"Claire."

She almost doesn't answer, sprawled there on her side in the darkness of the bedroom. They say _Don't go to bed angry_, but she's not angry. She and Sylar might benefit from a night of mutual silence.

"Yeah," she says after a moment's decision.

She hears him approach from the doorway. Feels the mattress sink as he seats himself on the edge. She's cuddled into his typical spot, nearer to the wall, because she likes the way it smells. His tone is gentler than it was before he left, and she wonders what he's going to say now.

"You didn't . . . hear me talking to myself . . . or anything like that, did you?" he asks.

Which is really not what she was expecting. Claire rolls over and stares up at his back, wary.

"You were talking to yourself?"

"Yes, but—no, actually, I'm a little unclear on that." He cocks his head, considering. "Well, never mind. I just thought you may have heard. I didn't want you to think I was cracking up."

"So . . . you're not, then. Cracking up."

"No, I was just on drugs. I'm over it now."

Claire quirks an eyebrow.

"How . . . comforting."

Seconds tick by. He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, and she hears a slight click in his throat as he swallows. The noise functions as a cue, and the apology over which she's been ruminating pours from her lips.

"Look, I'm—sorry about earlier," she begins, shamefaced. "I mean, I keep blaming you or—_providence _or some stupid goddamn thing, but the truth is this whole situation is my own fault, and—"

"Listen," he interrupts her, as if she hasn't spoken. His voice is low and faintly gravelly. "I need to tell you some things. About my mother and father."

He fights down the urge to preface the revelation with some childish request—_Can I tell you something, and you won't get mad?_ He can almost recall saying that as a boy, can almost wrap his memory around that childish dread of breaking or otherwise ruining something, that sensation of looking down and seeing the remains and feeling his innards draw together in his stomach. The ultimate weakness was in being small, like one of his father's rabbits.

Claire isn't sure she wants to hear.

"You know, I had this gnawing suspicion she didn't really move to Florida," she supplies in a lame attempt to quell the seriousness thickening the air around them.

"Hm," he laughs softly. "No, I didn't mean her. She raised me, but she wasn't really my mother. I _thought_ she was, but . . . And I think she did her best, honestly. She really loved me, you know . . . in her own way."

Claire almost asks _What way is that?_ but she doesn't want to know. She doesn't want to know any of it. Why is he doing this, _purging _all over her like this?

"For a long time, I didn't remember my real mother at all," he persists, despite her discomfort, as is his eternal habit. "It was after I met you, after Primatech burned."

_You mean after you killed _my_ mother_. The barb rests between them in the space on the bed, unused but nevertheless sharp.

"Angela Petrelli had told me I was adopted, so I went looking for answers. You know how it is—sometimes you get an answer so ugly, you wish you'd never asked the question."

_I _didn't _ask, _Claire thinks, and she sits up.

"You don't need to do this," she tells him hastily. "I mean, find me one person who _doesn't_—I mean _didn't_ have a screwed-up family, and—"

"Don't do that," he snaps over his shoulder, emotion at last leaking into his words. "You have no _idea_ what a screwed-up family can look like. Your family adored you. Noah would have _died_ for you."

"Sure, and also _kill_ for me and constantly lie _to_ me, and—"

"Yeah, to protect you! Just . . . shut up."

Okay, so Gabriel had a point. He _is_ jealous. Jealous as all hell, as a matter of fact. But he didn't wake her up merely to exhibit all the petty envy that should have evaporated years ago. In fact—

"I thought you'd be asleep," he admits, glancing around the dark room. "And I'd wake you up, and it would be easier, because you'd be half-aware the entire time."

"I couldn't sleep," she replies, slightly miffed at his outburst. "Sorry to disappoint you."

"That's all right," he forgives her, and she never fails to marvel at his vanity. "Anyway . . . where was I?"

"Looking for answers. Which I gather you expected to be prettier."

"Right. Okay. Well." He links his fingers together. "I found my father. Both of them, actually, adoptive and biological."

"Wait, you didn't know where your adoptive dad was, either?"

"No," he answers shortly. "I found him first, and he told me he was actually my uncle, and my _real_ father's name was Samson Gray."

"All these people are related?"

"Yes."

_Some family_.

"So, from there, I . . ."

Sylar trails off. Realizes what he's doing by relating the rather pointless sequence of events.

"Samson Gray was like me," he relates, coming to the crux. "He killed people for their abilities. One day—I was still just a kid, a small one—he drove with my mother and **me** to this diner . . . My mother stayed in the car. I was sitting in a booth, playing with this toy car. You know, just driving it back and forth across the table—"

Claire doesn't know what he may have looked like as a small child, but she has a sudden, stark mental image of a dark-haired boy sitting by a window, milkshake forgotten as it drips condensation, up on his knees in the booth, arm on the table, zipping a car around and making quiet little _Vroom!_ noises. The idea pierces her with its normalcy. She wants this boy to be, in his entirety, a product of her own imagination. She wants the child Gabriel to have been an antisocial hellion who amused himself by picking the legs off grasshoppers.

He's still speaking. She zones back in, shaking the image.

"When I realized what was happening, that he was actually going to leave me there . . . If he had been leaving me _and_ my mother, that would have been fine. I think I would have been happy, actually, but I didn't even _know_ these people, so I ran outside. My mother looked like she was having doubts-"

"Your mom _knew?_" Claire blurts.

"I don't know," he answers quickly, dropping his head lower, running his hands over the sides of his head. The position makes him feel better somehow, safer, as if he's taking cover from an overhead attack. "It's the only clear memory of her I have. But if she did, she was having doubts."

He hangs onto that like a lifeline. It's _important_ that she was having doubts.

"He killed her in the car and dumped her out before driving off. That's my earliest memory."

_Holy shit!_ Before Claire even knows what she intends to do, she's up on her knees, folding herself over his broad back, one arm around his chest and the other crooked on his shoulder, her hand stroking his hair back from his face.

"Son of a bitch!" she exclaims in amazement. "How come you never said anything about that before?"

Sylar blinks, eyes turning to the side in vain, trying to see her. This feels nice, the sympathy that isn't too much like pity, the horror that isn't disgust. He hates to ruin it.

"He killed her by cutting open her head," he finishes.

Claire's hand stills at his hairline.

"Oh," is all she says.

He looks down.

"And since I started doing that before I even knew he existed . . . Well, I think you see where I'm going with this. Claire Bear."

She doesn't quite know what to say, so she says nothing.

"I know what you're thinking," he muses.

"No, you don't," Claire returns hollowly.

"I had two fathers named Gray, and by the time I was thirty-four, I was a serial killer who wanted to make both of them suffer. So, am I going to screw it up to that extent? That's what you're thinking."

"Sylar, come on—"

"Best case scenario, I traumatize the kid for life. One way or another. Worst case, he turns up a shiny new ability, and I carve his head open so I can see how it works. Don't tell me you haven't considered _that_ before."

To her credit, she doesn't tell him that.

Taking her arms, he looses her hold on him and stands.

"Those questions zigzagging around inside your head right now . . . _Will the kid be like him? If he's not, will he _make_ him like him, will he hurt him?_ I don't blame you for asking them. I wanted you to. Otherwise, I wouldn't have told you. You should think about it. _Really_ think about it. Whether it's worth the risk . . ."

Sticking his hands in his pockets, he ambles toward the door.

"I'm going away for a couple of days," he informs her bluntly. "A week at the most."

"Where?" she asks, and he watches from the door frame as she pulls the sheet up around her body, hiding her nakedness from him. He pretends she's doing it because she's cold.

"I'm not sure," he replies. "I have to find something."

She doesn't want to ask. She won't.

"An ability?" She does. Shit.

"Mm-hm."

Claire sucks in a deep breath.

"Wow," she says shakily. "Okay."

"I might not have to kill anybody," he tells her to soften the blow. "If I do, it'll be out of necessity." His head tilts. "Like yesterday, when you asked me to take their memories. You didn't _want_ to do that, did you?"

She shakes her head and can't bring herself to do more than that, because to vocalize it would be to condone his intentions.

"You _had _to," he agrees. "You see, Claire Bear, I've decided the mark of a good set of parents is their willingness to do reprehensible things for their child. As opposed to doing them _to _him. Noah understood that."

Here Claire nods. Feels as if she's acting out a script.

"Think about what I said," he advises. "Ask all the hard questions. We're not just playing house anymore. If you still want to have the baby, all you have to do is be here when I get back."

Because she doesn't want to see the change on his face, she waits until he's turned to go before asking:

"What if I'm not?"

He sees it in his mind, the little bird flying out of her golden cage, and he wants to catch it hard in his fist, rip out feathers, clip wings. How _dare-_

"If you're not, then you're not," he states, and though his fingers have clenched within his pocket, he believes he's being honest. "Eternity is a long time. I'm sure we'll bump into each other now and again."


	26. Diamonds and A Dubious Favor

Sylar's nerves are stretched taut, a rubber band at its breaking point. The last thing Claire said to him—_What if I'm not?_—has dogged him all the way to Texas, throbbing inside his skull like a migraine. He goes over his response and wonders if he really meant it. He thinks he did. Which is what makes it stick him so, he supposes. She can walk out; that's _her_ decision. But allowing it, just sitting by twiddling his thumbs while her tracks turn cold and disappear, is passive to the point of . . . reasonability.

It's just not his style.

He could puppet her around the house, and their relationship could be like a Ming Dynasty vase: exquisite in form, yet hauntingly hollow within. It might not be so bad, considering the state of things now. Gabriel said she was never going to love him. But since when did Gabriel know _anything?_

No, he can't do that. He can't make her _hate_ him again. Hate is worse than indifference.

Or is it? Shit.

_They say the opposite of love is—_he begins, and then he scoffs at his own triteness, remembering that _they_ are bastards, the lot of them. Anyway . . . clichés can't help him now.

His hand slips into his pocket at least once every five minutes, where his thumb caresses the edge of his phone. If she's there, he can breathe easy for another hour or so, during which time he can replay her voice in his mind and analyze her words, her tone. If she's not, he may be sick. He decides not to call. For now. His thumb isn't so sure.

He wishes the Burnt Toast Diner was still standing cozily in Midland. He wishes he had reminded Claire that he did something good there once, took a vital young woman's senseless doom and turned it into a bloody teardrop. Even now he can see that look on the waitress's face, as if she were being born again. He gave her _life_. _He _did. The Bogeyman.

Of course, in the retelling, he would have omitted the part about intending to kill her . . . and about heading directly to a certain high school homecoming afterward. The finer details aren't important.

He realizes all at once that he's recalling the final few hours when he hadn't even met Claire Bennet. When she was nothing but a target, and the idea that she might be carrying his _demon-spawn_ seventy-odd years later would have drawn a careless scoff from him.

She was nothing to him once; she could have _stayed_ nothing. It's not her fault he latched on like a parasite intent on sucking the life out of her.

In the vast recesses of his memory, she runs away into the darkness of the auditorium, legs pumping beneath the tassels of her cheerleading uniform, and this time, he lets her go.

Maybe.

Probably.

Almost certainly.

[] [] []

All right, so maybe he didn't _need_ to come here, exactly. Maybe he could have gotten the information elsewhere, maybe with relative ease. Maybe he just wants to drown Robert Rutherford in his own lake.

_I'll have to keep an eye on that_, he thinks, rapping out a folksy rhythm on the front door.

To his intrigue, it's the mysterious _Sharon_ who answers. He can hear her approach, hard heels clacking over the floor, and notes that Rutherford took his advice and had the carpet removed. Quickly, he rearranges himself, taking a gamble.

"Oh—Robert!" There is bemusement in her cherry-red smile and lines of surprise on her forehead as she sweeps her chestnut hair back. When she lowers her brows, the lines don't disappear entirely.

_Graying at the temples_,_ too,_ he notes. Rutherford's gone quite the other way this time. Claire Bear must have traumatized him something fierce. _That's my girl_. He hopes.

"What's with the knocking?" Sharon asks, stepping back to admit her lover. "Did you lose your key? It wasn't locked."

Her Texan drawl is heavier than Claire's. _Locked_ becomes two syllables. _Lah-ocked. _Rutherford probably finds it charming. Sylar remembers to inject his own voice with the proper affect.

"It ought to be," he says in Rutherford's voice, rolling through the front door like a Trojan horse powered by malicious excitement. His tone is laden with loving concern when he admonishes, "You leave your doors unlocked in this day and age, you're just asking for trouble. All the way out here . . . nobody would even hear you scream."

Sharon smiles, and her eyes crinkle at the corners. They're pretty eyes, the emerald hue obviously enhanced with contact lenses. They're _trusting_ eyes. Sylar finds this satisfying, because to trust is to be a fool, and he always knew Rutherford's mistress would be an idiot. Not that he isn't grateful to her, to a certain extent.

Craning up toward him mischievously, she grins as she replies, "Nobody ever does."

He snorts in her face before he can stop himself. They bump chins before she draws back sharply, alarmed and displeased. She has to be at least a foot taller than Claire; his eyes flit down to check the height of her heels, but she's wearing sandal flats, her toenails painted candy-apple red.

"What's so funny?" she demands. When she's annoyed, the slight rasp in her voice becomes more apparent, vestige from an unwise youth spent putting away one cigarette after another.

"Nothing. Sorry, I didn't mean to . . ." He looks her up and down to reassure her and caps it off with a tiny kiss on her cheekbone.

"So how come you're home so early?" she questions as he strides around her, sticking his hands in his pockets and trying to examine the room without being overly conspicuous about it.

"Oh . . . why not?" he returns absently. The furniture has been rearranged. That armchair is probably there to cover the stain from the blood that seeped through the carpet. He wonders how Rutherford explained Claire's departure to Sharon, whether she even cared enough to ask . . ."Does a man need a _reason _to rush home to his favorite girl?"

Behind him, Sharon giggles and tells him to "hush up, you."

All photographs bearing Claire's image are gone from the mantel. Some of the frames are still there—they must have been expensive—restocked with new images of the new woman, finally welcome in the house. Where did it go, that picture of Claire laughing all in white?

_Bizarre_, Rutherford said. He wooed Claire Bennet with his looks and his money and his _promises_, he made three miscarriages with her, one for every decade he _had_ her, and then he decided she was . . . bizarre. And after she smiled in white, after she _looked_ at him like that.

_How dare you_, Sylar ponders darkly. _I love that bitch_.

Which is not exactly a term of endearment one should bestow upon the potential mother of one's child, but he's quite certain she never looks at _him_ like that. If she did, he wouldn't be so terrified of calling her.

How could Rutherford trade in _bizarre _for _commonplace _with such flippancy? How could he cast off something as precious and elusive as Claire Bennet's love, when other men-?

Sharon chooses this exact moment to approach him from behind, wrapping her arms around him and running her palms over Rutherford's stomach, still relatively toned for his age. Her middle finger slips between the buttons and finds his navel, rimming it delicately.

Cloaked in something like wrath but more akin to desperation, his features rippling, he grabs her arms hard, clenching his teeth as he refrains from asking her to kindly remove her goddamned grubby little gold-digging fingers from his person before he rips the manicured nails out by the roots. As he begins to push her hands back, a sudden flare of light catches his eye. He pauses, and his lips part.

"What's this?" he asks hoarsely, turning, her left hand still caught up in his as he stares at the ring—diamond, ringed with tiny emeralds to match her eyes.

Sharon's eyebrows shoot up, once again intensifying the lines on her forehead. Her eyes sparkle, nearly as bright as the precious stone sitting on the third finger of her hand.

"Oh, that's not gonna work, mister," she replies teasingly, threading her fingers through his. "What, you think you're the first guy who ever got engaged and then tried to fake amnesia?"

She kisses the tip of his nose. He blinks, the line of the engagement ring hard between his fingers. Sharon draws back and, staring up at him, misreads his expression. Her smile disappears slowly, though her eyes still sparkle. Rising up on her toes, she retracts her hand and wraps her arms around his neck, bringing herself as close as physically possible to her fiancée.

"I love you," she professes, and again, breathing it into his ear, "I love you so much."

A tingle rolls up his neck, behind his ears, around to his temples, but she's not lying. She's not. If anything, he tingles from the pure _truth_ in her words.

And then he snaps.

[] [] []

"I don't know. I just—shit. I don't know."

Claire is talking to herself—which, she tells herself, is completely _normal_ as long as she is not _answering_—as she stalks back and forth through the sitting room, into the bedroom, back into the sitting room once more. Her ponytail is askew, loose strands tumbling into her eyes, and she's chewing on her thumbnail. It's a habit she's seen _him_ resort to in times of anxiety or concentration, and she has no doubt that their child would be both a nail-biter and thumb-sucker extraordinaire.

_We'd have to buy that stuff, _she thinks. _That bitter stuff, you rub it on the baby's thumb to keep it out of its mouth, and that way its teeth don't come in all crooked, so on down the line you save money on braces and—_

God, what a dumb thought at a time like this.

Nevertheless, she imagines tugging gently on the baby's . . . on _a_ baby's wrist, pulling its tiny, wrinkled little thumb out of the wet cavity of its mouth, drying it off on the blanket. She can almost _feel _the velvet softness of an infant's skin, smell the baby powder scent of it, and it pierces her heart.

It's a memory of Lyle's first daughter, she realizes. Before she distanced herself from the remaining Bennets, somehow guilt-ridden over the age on her _little_ brother's visage, she held Ashley Bennet in her arms and smiled down into her round, pink face. She had never felt such a combination of envy and exhilaration.

"Well—" Claire scoffs, shaking the memory away. "That was a _normal_ kid."

_That_ wasn't a miniscule serial killer in the making, with the nuttiest father in existence cluelessly prodding its face with a bottle while its mother sits off to the side crocheting an infant-sized straight jacket with matching booties. You know. Just in case.

Claire returns to the bedroom, where the open suitcase rests atop the unmade bed. Tossed haphazardly in and around it are articles of clothing, some shoes, and a few grooming devices. From the bottom drawer of the dresser in the corner, she plucks yet another shirt and flings it across the others. Aside from the items she brought from Texas—items he himself shoved into this very suitcase before happily dragging her dead body down the front steps of her Texas home—she intends to pack only the bare minimum. It seems wrong to make off with the things he paid for, those items he bought with . . . _love_.

She cringes, one eye squeezing shut as if assaulted by a bright light.

And yet somehow it seems just as rude to leave them behind, because she knows that he _did_ put some measure of affection into their purchase. One gesture in particular causes her pulse to flutter unpleasantly: a pair of diamond earrings he gave her no more than a few days after they began this misbegotten relationship. He thought they'd go fabulously with the evening dress she'd picked out to replace the olive green one. He was right, but the box was small and cubical and black-velvet, and she felt a moment of acute horror as he extended it toward her, smiling in that satisfied yet somehow oblivious way that meant he was terribly proud of himself.

When her hand flinched backward instead of toward the box, he finally caught the look on her face, the _O_ shape of her lips, and his subdued smirk faltered. He frowned down at the box as if inspecting it for flaws before snapping it open.

"It's—um—They're real," he informed her, waving them in front of her face as if he suspected women were merely an offshoot of some extinct species of diamond-sniffing gopher. "I thought, I don't know, the dress—"

"Oh, my god!" Claire laughed in a rush of giddy relief, snatching the present away from him and dropping her forehead against his chest, where she spent a few seconds chiding herself for jumping to such a _silly_ conclusion. "Oh, my god . . . _Earrings_. Thank you."

"What did you _think_ they were?" he asked, grinning bemusedly, trying to keep up.

"You do not _even_ want to know. Trust me," she replied as she pulled away and tried them on before the mirror. He came up behind her, jaw rough against her hair, but his eyes kept drifting curiously from her reflection to the little box sitting on top of the dresser, as he tried to decipher what horrors she had imagined lay inside the little case. After a brief consideration, he knew. She saw the comprehension dawn on his face before he turned his eyes to search hers.

It was the night he first said _I love you_. The night she politely feigned deafness.

No . . . leaving his gifts behind would likely be a slap in the face, and maybe he's been slapped enough. By _her_, anyway. If nothing else, he'll probably get a kick out of twisting the jewelry from her earlobes the next time they meet. A guy needs _something_ to look forward to.

"You psycho son of a bitch," Claire mutters, snatching the box from the dresser and tucking it into the inner lining of the case. "Why did you have to be so crazy?"

Why does he have to be so _sincere?_

[] [] []_  
_

Rutherford closes the door behind him and flicks the light switch. Nothing happens, so he flicks it again—up and down, up and down—a line of annoyance forming on his brow. Changing a light bulb in the living room requires a sixteen-foot ladder and the balance of a trained acrobat. Sometimes he laments the woodsy grandiosity of his home.

Sometimes he laments a lot of things.

At this point, he curses beneath his breath, sets his briefcase aside, turns into the unlit room, and nearly has a coronary.

He finds himself in the presence of the demon.

_Oh, god damn it all to hell_, he thinks, words racing in his head when the gears of his mind recover from their jolt_. There was something wrong with her voice, I knew it, I did, why the _hell_ did I come home? _

Well, because he thought he was _safe_ here, that's why. As long as he didn't go back to New York, as long as—

"I haven't—" he begins, but pauses to swallow the dry terror in his throat. He holds up a palm in supplication before continuing. "I haven't contacted her. I haven't even _tried_. I—I meant it, when I said I wouldn't. I was telling you the _truth_, okay? I'm not a liar—"

"Congratulations," interrupts Sylar. The demon is sitting on Rutherford's couch, very casual, his long thin legs stretched out, spiderlike, to prop his feet on the coffee table, smudging the surface with dirt from the outside path. In his hand is a white ceramic coffee cup with a chip on the rim.

Rutherford shakes his head.

"What?" he chokes out.

Sylar transfers his cup to his right hand and reaches his right down into his pocket. He comes out with a tiny object, glinting in the light from the high window, and holds it up before his face, examining it for Rutherford's benefit.

"You have a thing for green eyes, don't you?" Sylar remarks. He waits for a response, and when there is none, flicks the engagement ring toward Rutherford, who pales when he fumbles it from the air.

There's a long moment of silence. Sylar sips his coffee. It's a pretty tasty brew, full and rich; he wonders if the brand is sold in New York. Wonders what else is in New York and what might be missing.

"What have you done?" This from Rutherford, in a rasp.

Sylar plays dumb. _Done?_ his eyebrows emote. _Who, me? _

"_Where-_" Rutherford takes a step forward, his stance almost threatening, and then Sylar's head cocks, and he thinks better of it. Stops where he stands. "Where is she?"

"Claire?"

"_Sharon_, you-!" He holds the ring up pointlessly.

"Oh. I was thinking about Claire. This is her cup, you know." Sylar taps it with his fingernail. "Lot of memories here . . . She used to get up early to sit on the porch when you were away . . . warm her hands on the cup while she watched the sun come up over the trees. I'm surprised you kept it."

Sylar removes his feet from the coffee table, placing the cup there as he sits forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Do you still love her?" he asks curiously.

Rutherford knows the right answer to this one.

"_No_."

"You love Sharon now."

"Yes."

"And Sharon . . . loves _you_."

Rutherford swallows, taking some strength from Sylar's use of the present tense.

"It would appear so, yes," he responds, voice shaky but under control.

"Mm." Sylar stares at him, drumming his fingers together. With a sudden change of topic, he asks, "Where does Micah Sanders live? I need to speak with him."

"Micah—the hell—I—God damn it, _where is she?_" Rutherford sputters.

"Sharon?"

"Did you hurt her?"

Sylar shrugs, disinterested. It's not the response Rutherford is looking for.

"We talked," he answers at last. "I was curious, just how did you intend to marry _her_ when, legally speaking, you're still married to your first wife? Sharon didn't seem to know much about it . . . So we talked about _you_, instead. How you met, _when_ you met, when you began your affair. That first smile. All the pretty memories . . ."

He drains his coffee cup—Claire's, actually—and rises.

"Anyway, about Micah. We're old friends, you know, so-"

Understandably, Rutherford finds it difficult to follow that train of thought.

"No, Sharon—"

"Is upstairs," Sylar assures him in a tone of mild exasperation. "Lying down, I believe. She said she wasn't feeling well. Headache or something."

Rutherford braves the demon's displeasure. Starts for the staircase.

"Don't believe me?" Sylar raises a brow, then admits, "I guess I can't blame you. You hardly know me, after all."

Obligingly, he brings his arm up, elbow level with his shoulder, and sticks his hand up in the air. Rutherford flinches, expecting pain or immobilization, but the demon merely begins twitching his fingers back and forth, much as he might walk them idly across a tabletop.

From the direction of the ceiling, there comes first a muffled scream, followed by a series of thumping, sliding noises. Even Rutherford, whose ears have scarce been assaulted by any audible violence more terrible than a lover's spat, recognizes the sounds of a woman in the midst of a struggle.

"Don't hurt her!" Rutherford pleads, and Sylar merely rolls his eyes. "I'll tell you anything-Micah, the old man, he lives at . . . let me see-"

Sharon emerges from the master bedroom in a bizarre, nightmare walk, her legs urging her body forward even as her hands reach out to cling at the door frame. Her nails rake the paint on the wall, and now she approaches the staircase. With a shriek, she begins to traverse it, still attempting, valiantly but vainly, to resist. Her only reward for her efforts is the loss of half a fingernail against the railing.

When she cries out in pain-when the demon, seemingly devoid of mercy, continues to puppet her ever onward-Rutherford overcomes his own trepidation and runs to her. Halfway up the stairs, he catches her and pulls her against his chest.

"Stop!" he snaps over his shoulder at Sylar, who watches the display with dry displeasure, lip curling ever so slightly. Then, pushing Sharon back so he can examine her, Rutherford lowers his voice and says, "Are you hurt?"

His fiancee does not reply. She simply latches onto his arms, fingertip smearing scarlet into his white shirt.

"Sharon?" he encourages. "Talk to me, baby. Hey."

Cupping beneath her chin, he forces her head up and peers at her closely. The stark terror in her face cuts him, but even more striking . . .

Her eyes. Her eyes are odd. They lack something. Is it focus?

"What did you do?" he calls over his shoulder once more.

No, it's not focus. She's _aware_ of her surroundings. It's as if she doesn't. . .

"What's happening?" she speaks at last, voice a husky whisper.

It's as if she doesn't recognize them.

"What's happening?" she repeats. "Help me. Help me, please."

Her eyes lack recognition. He is looking down into the face of the woman he loves, and he might as well be a stranger.

"What did you do?" Rutherford asks again, eyes on Sharon, voice quiet. "What did you do, you bastard, you _monster, _what-?"

And then he's shouting, even as he pulls the woman down the remaining stairs, half carrying her, ignoring the way the muscles in her thin form seize anew at his harsh, loud voice.

"You could have gotten his address anywhere—you could have looked it up in the goddamn _phone book, _you lunatic! That's how _I_ found him! Why did you come here? Why did you _fucking_—"

"To hurt you." The words pop out of Sylar's mouth in a growl, an empty threat meant to motivate the man before him. And yet . . . there is an undeniable truth in the response.

_Think about the earrings. _

Oh, yes, think about the earrings in their little black box. Think about green-eyed Sharon with the ring on her finger.

"You already had the love of your life—you think you deserve _two?_ God damn it, you didn't deserve the _first_ one. Me, I've been here a hundred and eight years—I've known her _eighty goddamn years_—and she _still_ doesn't-!"

It begins as a sneering accusation, winds up a wrathful lamentation issued through clenched teeth, and breaks off after he has already revealed far more than he intended.

And this is _not_ the way to Claire's heart, not even in a roundabout, back-road sense, but maybe Claire Bennet _has_ no heart. Maybe this man broke it forever. Maybe it's the one thing he _can't _fix.

_Or maybe you're just. Not. Good enough. Think about _What if I'm not?

It hurts. He came here because it hurts, and he wants to see someone else hurt just a little bit worse. Someone he hates, whom he can harm without one iota of remorse. Rutherford is a bothersome, loathsome insect, and now Sylar, stung and vengeful, has him on a pin.

As if to relish in this fact, he rips Sharon from Rutherford's clutch with a twist of his arm and sends her arcing into the wall over the mantle, where her feet send the cheery new photographs scraping across the stone top to fall and shatter against the floor.

Shutting his eyes briefly, he forces a measure of control back into his voice.

"Where does Micah Sanders live? Tell me _now_."

"Okay—I don't—I can't—_god_, just give me a second!" Rutherford stammers, mind nearly crashing to a halt as it grasps the idea that the demon has actually grown _madder_ since they last met. It shouldn't be _wholly _surprising-Claire could drive a _rational _man insane, and this Sylar fellow clearly had a running head start in that direction to begin with. Now, in his desperate lunacy, he has reached even greater depths of fearsomeness. Unpredictability.

_Evil._

"Think fast, Rutherford," Sylar suggests. Maintaining eye contact with the man, he thrusts his hand out toward Sharon. "Or I take her face with me as a present for Claire."

Sylar can just hear her now: _Oh, you shouldn't have. _The image, which ordinarily would make him laugh, now makes him feel as if he's being stabbed . . . or as if he'd like to stab someone.

Sharon screams as he tightens his fingers, clawing at her telekinetically.

"It's 823-" Rutherford begins desperately, memory working overtime. "No, it's 283-I-It's Oakley Drive! For God's sake, he lives on Oakley Drive in Odessa! In a little yellow house with rose bushes out front!"

Sylar looks over at him.

"Oakley Drive," he echoes.

"He's in the phone book!" Rutherford asserts for the second time, feeling pathetic and drained. "Please-please, don't hurt her any more than you already have."

Slowly, Sharon slides down the wall until she is seated on the mantle, legs swinging in the cool, empty fireplace. Sylar lets his hand drop.

"Now, was that really so difficult?" he says. Then, to twist the knife: "Try telling the jeweler why the wedding was canceled. He'll probably give you a refund just to get you out of the shop."

And he turns away, his threatening demeanor evaporating all at once now that he has his information, effectively breaking the spell. Rutherford immediately crosses the room and wraps his arms around Sharon's waist. Lifting her down from the mantle, he cradles her, speaking phrases meant to soothe her, to soothe himself, to convince himself that he can fix this. He can make her remember. Everything will be the way it was, the way it should be.

The engagement ring rests in the middle of the floor, tiny and dull without lights to make it sparkle. For the moment, it is quite forgotten.

Before Sylar takes his leave, he issues a final, flat statement in the woman's direction:

"I did you a favor," he says.

She merely looks on over Rutherford's shoulder, shaking, her eyes a set of lost, glassy marbles as the demon disappears out the door.


	27. The Unfailingly Noble

**Okay, first off, I _know._ Second- Yes, I'm alive, and no, I was not on a round-the-world paddleboat expedition. I mean, I could tell you I was, and I considered it, but I'm pretty sure you'd know something wasn't right. **

**Several of you urged me to update via your reviews or through the PMs, and one person even e-mailed me. I'd like to apologize to you guys most of all. :( **

**My resolve from here on out is to update once a week until this fic is completed. Fellow fanficcer SydneyAlice tells me she does this despite her schedule, and I know lots of busy Heroes F F writers do so as well, so I know I ought to be able to do it, barring some crazy weekend cram session. However, I do receive the results of an exam tomorrow, and so I throw myself upon your ample mercy and ask you to be kind as the Sylar/Molly verbal-and-psychological sparring ensues. :)  
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Micah Sanders sleeps the deep, mid-afternoon sleep of the aged.

It's ridiculous, given the advances of technology, how easy it is to breach the security of someone's home. Sylar melted the lock with one hand and fried the alarm system with the other. It took about three seconds altogether. Now he's sitting comfortably in the high-backed leather swivel chair before the old man's personal computer.

Sylar has refrained from waking Micah—not out of politeness, but because, as he expected, the contact information provided in his "protected" documents is rather limited. Names are included, though sometimes only a surname preceded by a title such as _Ms._ and, once, _Sir. _There is the odd grainy photograph from a newspaper or an ancient-looking high school yearbook shot. Ages are not listed. Some internet addresses, but no telephone numbers. There are _no_ physical locations.

Clearly such meagerness is intentional. Micah lived through Danko, after all. Well. Micah lived through Sylar. So far, anyway. Knowledge can be so deadly, so destructive in the wrong hands. Not everyone wants to help. Some people just want to cut you down or carve you open.

If Sylar wakes the man now, all sorts of unpleasantries will arise. If he doesn't kill or otherwise incapacitate Micah, he runs the risk of having him raise the alarm at Molly's rest home somehow. And he's getting nowhere without Molly; he knows that. Micah sees himself as some sort of shepherd, and, laughable as that may be, he'll die before willfully sending any amongst his flock to the slaughter. In the mind of a hero, the only sacrificial lamb is oneself. So it's all in the hands of _the wife_. Those hands so miraculous with pins and thumb tacks . . .

Precious Molly.

Precious Molly for precious, maddening Claire. Sylar would make the trade without a thought. Hell, he'd see it as a rare bargain, and he imagines Micah must know that.

_How precious _is_ she, Micah?_ he wonders. If he doesn't find what he's looking for soon, he may have to wake the man up despite his misgivings and ask that very question. _Precious enough for you to help me protect what's precious to me?_

Fortunately, he doesn't have to ask. He finds it: a name, first and last included. No picture by the brief description.

From the bud of his lips, a smile blossoms like a poisonous flower.

_Leslie Laughlin. _

The Sleepless.

**[] [] []**

Nurse Branson pops her head into the room, the rosy-cheeked face beneath her mousy fringe as sunny as the yellow wallpaper. She eyes the frail, waste of a woman in the bed, which, despite its frill and many pillows, is unmistakably a hospital bed. The woman is fully dressed, half-sitting on top of the covers, staring out the window at the grounds as if she might be considering an afternoon stroll.

"Hello, Molly," greets the nurse, ever chipper as she pushes the door open with her ample hip and steps aside to allow entrance to the equally portly person at her back. "D'you feel like some company? This man says he's flown in all the way from Cali to visit you."

"I brought you some chai," iterate the long-dead lips of Matthew Parkman. "Extra honey, skim milk—just like Mohinder makes it. He couldn't get away from the lab, but he told me to tell you he'll swing by in a few days. Oh, he says hello, by the way."

Matt passes Molly the disposable cup. The cloudy tea inside smells like baking gingerbread cookies, the scent permeating the underlying antiseptic odor of the rest home. She flicks her eyes toward Branson, who excuses herself with a nod and an offer to return should she be needed. Molly waits for the door to fall shut before turning her attention to Matt.

"Thanks," she says.

Her voice is brittle with age, but the smile she affords him leads him to wonder whether it holds any recognizable hint of the dreamy child of yesteryear. He wouldn't know, of course. He made her scream, made her cry—never made her smile.

"Now . . ." She takes a small sip of her tea, testing its temperature. "Why don't you remove that mask before I come over there and rip it off your head like a paper bag?"

Dreamy child, indeed. Well, he admires her nerve.

"I'm sorry," Sylar apologizes, lapsing smoothly into his own form. "I was trying to make this easier for you."

Molly almost regrets having her cataracts removed when she flinches at the sight of her personal childhood monster. Taking him in from the top of his dark head to the tip of his black-shoed toes, she realizes she has embellished upon him over the many, many years since she last saw him.

His brow, heavy as it is, seems paltry compared to the rectangular black lines her imagination bestowed upon him. And his eyes, she sees, are brown—not maroon with bloodlust. As for his teeth—well, she can't see his teeth, but she must assume that his incisors, however large, are not quite the fangs she has made them in memory.

His hands, at least, are as she remembers them. _Clawed_. Not visibly, no, but she knows he could cut her into four pieces with one vicious swipe.

She lowers her gaze. Looks at the surface of the tea. _Mohinder's _tea.

Sylar is glad the drink is lukewarm when the cup all but explodes against the wall a few inches to his right. He leaps, started, and sidesteps hastily into the overstuffed arm of the chair that must accommodate Micah during his many visits, but he's not quick enough to avoid a plentiful splattering against his face and shoulder.

"It wasn't _poisoned_," he grouses, rubbing tea out of the ridge in his ear with his sleeve.

"That's for profaning his memory," Molly informs him, baring her teeth even as she massages her arthritic shoulder. "You don't deserve to wear his face. You . . . you don't deserve to wear his _socks_."

As if he _enjoyed_ smothering himself with Parkman's pudgy, permanently self-righteous visage. As if he could somehow conceive of coveting the man's socks. He raises a brow.

"I thought you were . . ." How did Rutherford put it? "Um—'not quite right.'"

"_You_ thought that?" she asks disbelievingly. "You thought _I_ wasn't quite right?"

"I was _told_ that."

"By whom?"

_Whom_. He likes that. He fears Claire will have their child talking like a Texan, born and raised. The adages she occasionally comes out with are even worse than her lax grammar. He once expressed a hope that she would someday learn to put the books back into the shelf with the spines in proper upright position, and she responded by telling him to _wish in one hand, babe_. It was his fault, really, for making the remark during one of her recent mood swings; nevertheless he was torn between distaste at the implied remainder of the sentence and pleasure that she had used a term of endearment, albeit in a crude, sarcastic fashion.

So his one true love is a cynical, quasi-suicidal hick locked in a valley girl's body. It's okay. As long as she stays, it's okay.

He should call . . . His thumb dips into his pocket, snakes over the phone.

Molly clears her throat, snapping him out of it.

"Oh—" He takes a moment to recall the question. "The man you sent to me."

"Claire's husband?"

"Robert Rutherford, yes," Sylar replies tightly. He doesn't like calling him _Claire's husband. _He doesn't like _hearing_ him called that. When people call him that, Sylar has a strong, itching urge to make them _take it back_. Using any means necessary.

Molly can see the malice on his face. Slowly, she shakes her head.

"You killed him, didn't you?"

Oddly, Sylar's features brighten at the cold accusation.

"No!" he denies with sudden cheerfulness, as if this is an achievement, and Molly ought to be pleased with him. "No, I paid him a visit just yesterday, actually. He's fine. He's . . . He's in good health. I didn't do anything to him. You know. Physically."

That bit of cruelty with Sharon was mercy, really. He could have cut them both into pieces fit for a dog the late Mr. Muggles' size. They're both still breathing. Walking. In and out, one step at a time . . .

In his _mercy_, he smiles at the knowledge that Rutherford is still suffering.

"I'm not afraid of you anymore," Molly asserts, misreading him.

He wipes the mirth from his face. _Get a grip_.

"Good," he replies in avid earnest, strategically overlooking her lie. "I don't want you to fear me. I want you to help me."

"_Help_ you . . ?" Molly shakes her head, looking him up and down as if he's covered in slime, sticky with mired bugs and microscopic bacteria. "Why would I _help_ you?"

That's a stumper. He chews on his lip for a moment before hitting on what he thinks should be a promising tact:

"Did you and Micah have any children?"

_"You stay away from my family," _she hisses immediately in return, a valiant mama cat bristling at the approach of a slavering, sadistic canine.

"You know . . ." Sylar begins with an exasperated sigh, dropping his shoulder blades back against the wall, "not _every single thing_ that comes out of my mouth is a threat. I was _going_ somewhere with that question."

"Well, _get there_," the old lady advises.

He takes a deep breath.

"Claire is pregnant," he begins bluntly, ready to bare all—to relate _his _business to this frail mortal—if it means she'll help him. Well—if she'll help _Claire. _

The mama-cat claws retract even as the sagging skin on Molly's face seems to tauten.

"What did you do to her?" she demands.

Sylar winces, and his fist tightens convulsively.

"I didn't do anything _to _her," he snaps, offended. Why do people just _assume_ that? As if she could never _possibly_ be with him of her own free will. Because that would just be _crazy,_ what with him being so dastardly and repulsive and the black-hearted human incarnation of _evil_ and all that. "Her sorry goddamned husband left her, you know—I guess he didn't tell you _that _when he came begging for my address. No. But of course you helped _him_, didn't you? _Heroes_ . . . You _would._"

He scoffs, disgusted, and strides restlessly back and forth at the foot of Molly's hospital bed, stopping short in the corner to avoid the chair. Agitated, he can't imagine sitting at the moment.

"She _called_ me, you know. Because she had no one else."

"She had—" Molly opens her mouth to protest, to make all the usual assertions of friendship and loyalty and to spew that _there-for-you _bullshit that helplessly ordinary people like to shower over one another in moments of awkward emotion. He does her the courtesy of cutting her off before she embarrasses herself.

"I saved her—you know how rash she can be. And I took her in, gave her a place to stay—"

_With you,_ Molly supplies silently, knowingly.

"—time to think . . ."

_About you_.

"We've been living together ever since—and for your information?" He turns on her as if she had spoken to contradict him. "We're _quite happy._ I mean—we've got our own home, we've got the . . . the baby on the way . . ." He shrugs and winds down with a shameless, matter-of-fact, "We're practically married."

"Practically? Did you forget you could just _puppet_ her down the aisle?"

"No puppeting involved," he smirks. He only _wishes_ he were the one pulling the strings.

"Not of the literal sort, you mean," Molly argues. "Maybe you didn't use the invisible threads, but what about the figurative ones?"

"Figurative?" He raises a brow.

"You're painting yourself as some sort of philanthropist. You _saved_ her. Took her in." Molly takes a beat, and then rattles off, "Seduced her. Impregnated her. Your generosity is humbling, oh, yes. You've got her good and locked in now, haven't you? Now you can play with her all you want, take her out and twirl her around and then put her up again till the next time you're bored. Well, she's a _person_, not a plaything!"

"Ha!" Sylar laughs harshly. "Are you serious? _I_ seduced _her?_ Did you really—? All right, whatever you say . . . That's always been the big misconception, hasn't it, the way you all see Claire as this _innocent_ little girl. With her—pom poms and—and teddy bears and little fluffy dogs. Well, she's _not_. She never was, really, not even before _I_ got hold of her."

Crashing that boy's car . . . God, the exhilarating, borderline erotic thrill that gives him, even now. It's probably a good thing she didn't lay that one on him a long time ago. He would have been showing up nights demanding bedtime stories about it. _Tell it again, Claire-just one more time. _Pretending he didn't want her, wasn't at all bothered by her marriage, would have been rendered impossible.

Molly is staring at him, disdain inked liberally into the wrinkles around her mouth.

"You still don't believe me," he sneers, meeting her eyes.

Now she averts her gaze. A bitter sort of melancholy overtakes her face.

"I believe you," she acknowledges after a moment, morose and reluctant. "I always knew this would happen, if it went on long enough. I just . . . I thought it would take longer. Maybe ten or twenty years after you became the last man on earth. I guess I . . . _estimated _wrong."

_Overestimated_. That's what she's saying, really. Overestimated Claire. He can hear it, unspoken, in the subtle contempt of her tone. And it angers him, both for himself and for Claire, because he knows that _this_ is what she fears: being judged by the true, the just, the unfailingly _noble_. And not by her own merits, no, not by her own actions, but by the company she keeps. Being judged alongside _him. _Damned beside him. All that invisible blood on his hands rubbing off wherever he touches her . . .

"You have no right to judge Claire," he growls. _Any of you—you're all exactly alike. _His eyes are narrowed, his face flushed. Electricity crackles at his fingertips, and he reminds himself that this woman is old and frail and off-limits. "Me, fine. I'm used to it. I _scoff_ at it. But not her."

She'd _never_ get used to it. It's just not in her nature, and maybe he's glad. It's what makes her different from Elle, who died, after all, for being so very similar to himself, who took his place when in the tangle of his self-love and self-loathing, he could not take his own life. _Damaged goods_, indeed.

"Claire Bennet has tried to be _heroic_ for well beyond the span of her natural life," he points out. "Won't you people allow her to have _anything_ for herself, or does she have to wait until _every single one of you _is dead to finally start living her life?"

There's a second of silence once he finishes extolling the virtues of his pretty, pregnant counterpart.

"My god," says Molly, and her tone is level but incredulous when she marvels, "You _actually think_ you're in love with her. Don't you?"

His lip curls.

"I _am_."

_I think, therefore I am._ That's the philosophy, after all. It seems logical enough. Apparently, Molly doesn't concur.

"You can't even _feel_ love." Her tone might be pitying were it not so patronizing. "You might think you do, but that's only because you wouldn't recognize it."

That cuts a little. Maybe because there's always the possibility she's right. How is he supposed to know something is real if he can't feel it on his fingers? _Think_, sure, he _thinks _he knows, but how does he _know?_

"Well, whatever I _can_ feel, I feel it for her," he states honestly. It's all he has. Surely that makes it worth something.

For a moment, Molly dares to allow herself to contemplate what it must mean to be on the receiving end of such . . . _affections. _Which spawns her next query:

"And what does she feel for you?"

_That_ cuts rather deeply.

"She . . ." Sylar shrugs and shifts his eyes before he begins to prattle: "I mean, I . . . I'm reliable. I'm necessary. Because I can do things nobody else—_literally_ nobody else—can do. Things for _her_. She likes that. And I can buy things for her, she—well, actually, she doesn't like that as much, but . . . you know, when the baby comes, I think she'll feel differently. Babies are so expensive."

Molly stares at him for a long moment.

"That had absolutely nothing to do with what I asked," she informs him, as if he weren't fully aware of the fact.

Sylar finds the clock. Follows the second-hand for half a revolution. For such a nice rest home, the clock is junk. One of those generic department-store deals, ornately patterned to disguise its worthlessness. God, he hates those. There's no artistry in them; they aren't heirlooms, just cheap plastic utensils, like disposable picnic forks. They break, or the battery dies, and people don't even bother. Just toss it out and buy another one. Well, screw you, too.

"What is it you love about Micah?" he asks slowly, eyes tracing the contours of the sub par timepiece. "I mean . . . what did he do, all those years ago, to make you fall in love with him?"

This is going a little too far. Molly isn't about to taint the sanctity of her love for Micah by allowing the Bogeyman to dissect it for salvageable parts. So, with a dry bite in her tone, she replies:

"The usual. Flowers. Candy. Going twenty-six years without taking a single human life."

He flicks his eyebrows upward. Twenty-six years. Damn.

That's a long time.

"Is she still in New York? Claire? Is she still at Mendez's old place?"

His tone is successfully casual, the question seemingly uttered almost absently as he continues to peruse the clock. Molly isn't the least bit fooled. She's seen it so much in her work with troubled youth, that feigned detachment blanketing the acute inward focus of the frightened and the injured.

"Let me check," Molly replies, suddenly and inexplicably generous.

Surprised at her unforeseen compliance, he snaps to follow her motions as she reaches out to pull the single drawer on her night table. From its shallow depths she pulls an oversized atlas, as old and tattered as any pirate's map in a blockbuster film. He cannot look away as she rattles through its pages, and so he simply crosses his arms over his chest, nostrils flaring slightly, the tiny ticking of the dimestore clock pounding in his ears like the beat of a diseased heart.

She retrieves a pin now. Alternating between impatient and apprehensive, he bites unconsciously at his thumb nail and wars to stop himself from snapping at her to hurry up and _tell _him before she dies of natural causes . . . or to blurt _Never mind, forget it—forget I asked_.

Then it's too late for either action, for any action at all. The atlas is open, the pin is inserted. The word is—

"No." Molly shakes her head, shrugging her age-wasted, knobby shoulders. "No, she's nowhere near there." She glances up at him with an expression of cool curiosity. "Why? Is that where you left her?"

He doesn't answer. He can't answer. There's a hot, syrupy soup of disappointment welling up in his chest, and he can't form words.

God. For a moment, he's devastated. Lost. Doesn't know what he's doing here, if he's not here for Claire. Doesn't know what he's doing, period. Probably, he should kill somebody. Maybe he'll feel like it in a minute. He takes a stride into the corner. Sits down hard in the arm chair—and leaps up a second later.

"You're lying!" he realizes, a curious mixture of outrage and sweet relief straining his voice. The tingling sensation is there, after all, buried somewhat beneath the greater pressure of the knee-jerk pain that overwhelmed him at once. "Why would you say that? Why _lie_ about something like that? What's the point?"

Molly exhales sharply—not quite a laugh, but close.

"I wanted to see your face." There's gratification, contentment at the hurt she dealt him, dulled only by his too-quick recovery.

Well, then. Sylar never really _wanted _to kill Molly when she was a little girl. Not just for the sake of it, anyway.

He sort of wants to now.

"You _will_ help me," he says, voice dropping to express a deadly certainty. From his pocket, he withdraws and unfolds the set of papers he printed nearly an hour ago. Holding it up, he informs her, "Straight from dear Micah's files. You know, I didn't catch him at home, but I could always go back for a lengthier visit. He'll probably be wondering who melted his doorknob."

Allowing the threat to sink in, he steps closer, looming over her like a long black shadow. Mean-spirited, yet possibly justified, happiness waning, she tries to keep her chin steady.

"Imagine the irony," he says. "When I _tried_ to kill you, I just wasn't quick enough. Now I'm trying _not_ to, and here you sit, practically begging me to cut you open and pull it out of you."

She flinches reflexively at the flick of his hand, eyes squeezing shut. Beside her, she hears the soft tap of the papers landing on the flowered spread.

"Now . . . Could you please give me this man's location, Molly? It's the last time I ask. And to be fair, I did say the magic word."

Trembling openly now, Molly lifts her lids and looks at him fully, admirably honest in her fear and her hatred.

"I go mad every now and then," she states.

"We all go a little mad sometimes," Sylar returns, then smirks at the irony when her face registers little familiarity with the quote. "Sorry—sometimes I forget how young you are."

Molly shakes her head, hand sliding out across the spread to feel for the file.

"I go mad," she repeats, "really, truly batshit _crazy_ sometimes, just thinking about you. I go back to that day . . . and it's like it's real."

Her voice catches; there's a strangled sob back there, born in a hidden cupboard and now decades old, rising to burst like a bitter soap bubble in her throat.

"Why can't I go mad now?" she wonders. "When you're _really here_, when there's no Matt or Mo to protect me, no Micah to wake me up and hold me and kiss it away—why can't it happen when I _need_ it?"

This lament ends on a note of grinding fury at the injustice of it all, and Sylar shushes her, glancing behind him toward the door as he seats himself beside her, crinkling the sheets, as he extends a warm hand from which she cringes.

"How do you know it isn't?" he reasons, pushing an ash-colored curl behind her ear. He exerts no physical power over her, and yet she is entirely rigid. "How do you know I'm here at all? You've got no reason to fight this, you know—no cause for guilt. I mean, it's like Rutherford said—"

And he allows his index finger to drift to the center of her forehead, where he taps ever so gently, dropping his voice to a soothing whisper.

"You're not quite right."

The fingertips of his left hand nudge the file into _her_ fingertips, and she accepts it, defeated.


	28. Love and Puppies

**Because when I say "next week," I mean "next year." Ahem. :/**

**I've discovered the source of my slowness, however-I write out of order. I was actually writing bits of a conversation from the final chapter while still hammering out this one. Speaking of this one, I've chosen to split it in two, as it was getting a bit bulkier than I typically enjoy, being a fan of shorter chapters. I cropped it at the cleanest place I could find, which rendered it a tad briefer than my most recent posts. The rest will be along as soon as I can clean it up. **

**Anyway, *hugs* to all of you. Hope your year has been fabulous so far. :)  
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"It's my fault," says Micah, propping his chin on the crook of his cane. "I as good as sent him after you."

"Take me home," Molly suggests. Her voice is an airy wheeze. "I'll be safe there."

"If I had never given Claire his information . . ." her husband continues to air his regrets. "I thought . . . I mean, it was _Claire_. I knew she wanted to contact him, but I just naturally assumed that's where it stopped. I had no way of knowing they'd become . . . friendly. Did _you_ know?"

"Like I know any more than you, shut up in this place."

Micah looks at his wife. His brown eyes are wide and pleading.

"Molly, I don't like you being here. I hate it every bit as much as you do. You know that."

"I know you say it, but here I am."

"Honey, you're not—"

"_Don't_ you—don't you say I'm not q-quite right!"

"I _wasn't_ going to say that," Micah insists softly, a little shocked, as he hastens to her side. He brings the straw of her water bottle to her lips, and it hurts him to note that she draws on it without protest. Typically she would pull the bottle from his hands and chide him for babying her, but the day's events have taken their toll on the fragile balance of her mind and body. "I was going to say you're not well. I wouldn't say the other. That would be like calling you crazy, and you know I'd never do that, you mad old bat."

He'd swear her smile is worth at least twice the extravagant amount of money he withdrew from ATM machines during the greater recklessness of his youth.

"Scoot yourself over," he says, and after a brief moment of helping her rearrange her position, Micah props his cane against the night table and sprawls out beside her on the hospital bed. It's a good thing they've both kept pretty trim over the years, he reflects, before he ventures a half-hearted, "This is . . . _kind _of like being home."

Molly, aware even in her bitterness that her husband is trying to make the best of a sad situation, smothers her instinct to ask, _How?_ and nestles her head on his arm.

"Do you think they do this?" she wonders.

"Who?"

"You know—Claire and . . . him."

"Oh, Molly . . ." Micah heaves an irritated sigh. "Please, let's not think about it. You've had enough of that man to last a lifetime."

"I bet they do," she persists weakly but resolutely. She's lost a lot of respect for Claire over the last few hours. "Micah . . . We have to warn him. That man he's going after."

Micah shakes his head.

"It won't make any difference," he tells her, his tone matter-of-fact and atypically unconcerned.

"How can you say that?" demands Molly, frowning. "We have to at least try. We've always tried. We can let . . . _this _stop us." She allows her eyes to wonder around the room, taking in the cheap clock, the yellow wallpaper, the controls on the side of the electric bed. As if to herself, she adds, "This can't possibly be what stops us."

"It's not a matter of trying," insists her husband. "Even if we did warn him, it wouldn't do any good. Laughlin is . . . he's a bad man."

"Worse than Sylar?"

Micah chuckles softly.

"You find that hard to believe, don't you?" he asks.

"You bet your ass," she answers.

"Look, I know how you feel about him, Molly. And it's perfectly natural; he got you so young, you could hardly help it. But _worse than Sylar_ isn't the only way to be a demented son of a bitch, and I'm telling you this Laughlin guy _is_ one."

"So he's got it coming. That's what you're saying."

"_No_. I'm saying that I've spoken with Laughlin before—many times, in fact. I'm saying that I _know_ this man, and I could call him right now, tell him he's an hour away from death. I'm saying I could tell him exactly who's coming for him, and exactly what he's going to do, and it _wouldn't make any difference_."

Vexed—with Micah's stubbornness, with Claire's defection from the ranks of the spotless, perhaps most of all with her own helplessness—Molly says, "I can't believe that."

"Some people embrace their fate, honey. In fact, they actively seek it." With a shrug and a scoff, Micah wraps it up with what Sylar would construe as a highly judgmental, "Look at Claire."

They lie in silence for a while. Molly turns her head on his arm to gaze out at the grounds, while Micah, despite his attempts to avoid it, finds his eyes drawn again and again to the clock.

"You're my best friend, Moll," he says at last. "I ever tell you that?"

"Yes. Lots of times."

"Well . . . It bears repeating."

**[] [] []**

In the first-class cabin of AeroDynamic flight 423 from Midland, the man in black tips a liberal serving of champagne into his glass. He shifts his long legs, turns his gaze to the window, and savors the bubbly, celebratory beverage.

Sylar feels happier now, more optimistic. It's silly to think Claire might not be there when he gets back. Claire _loves_ babies. Hell, he can knock her up again every time one heads off to college. It'll be fun, like getting a new puppy.

_Lightbulb: _

He'll get the kid a _puppy!_ Kids _love_ puppies! God, he's a genius!

See now? An unreserved smile softens what has become, of late, the too-austere set of his mouth and chin. He'll be a great father. _Spectacular_. This kid won't have any choice but to love him. He'll feed it and . . . hug it. Whatever else you do . . .

Train it?

For a long, struggling moment in which the smile crinkles into a perplexed purse, he tries to remember his own childhood, rifling through the ready snatches of nightmare images for something normative, some standard parental phrase or gesture that he might be able to use. He's sure there must be _something_ if he can only dredge up a bloodless recollection of his mother. A few more seconds, however, and he gives it up as a hopeless effort. He can't even remember the woman's face.

No matter. Claire can give him pointers; it will bring them closer. The important thing is, he's going to be there. Instead of fear and stuffed rabbits, there will be love and puppies. Live ones, of course.

Life will be good.

Night is falling by the time the pilot thanks the passengers for flying Aerodynamic, and San Francisco is lighting up as they disembark.

The city strikes him as garish, somehow—glittery and synthetic, as if its inhabitants are more plastic than people. Of course, he might attribute that to his tendency to view ordinary individuals as useful objects. Given his reason for coming here, it wouldn't be terribly surprising. He's acclimated to his task; that's all. He came here to make an acquisition, and he will _not_ go back to New York empty-handed.

Red-handed, maybe, but that all depends on Laughlin.

**[] [] []**

If there's one phenomenon Sylar has never quite been in tune with, it's clubbing.

Perhaps it's because everyone in a club tends to be lying his or her ass off as a matter of course, so that his body becomes a veritable beehive just from extracts of random flirtations. Perhaps it's because one needs to have consumed an excessive quantity of the watered-down drinks in order to forget that and fall under the belief that the company is good and the music is irresistible. Perhaps it's because he hates people.

This club is called Nokturna, and the folks in the queue outside seem unusually _costumed_ in their attire. On the whole, they remind him of Halloween gypsies or pirates, though a few stroll through the doors in leather, their exposed skin a pale, papery white.

God, how he hates people.

Of course, he reminds himself as he skirts the queue, this is hardly the first time he's killed someone in a club. On the whole, this may not be such a boring ex—

_No_. Damn it. _"I might not have to kill anyone." _That's what he told Claire, and he intends to adhere to that conditional promise, insomuch as it's possible. He recalls the way she clutched the sheet to her body, distancing herself from him, and muses that he's had his last night's sleep in any case, before he enters through the maintenance door on Nokturna's roof.

It's already setting in by the time he reaches the bar on the main floor, that pincushion, beehive bodysuit sensation, and it's doing nothing good for his mentality. He can't help but hear echoes of voices past in the tones of the woman who claims to be a lightweight when it comes to liquor—

_She's going to drink you under the table and leave with your wallet,_ he surmises cynically.

—or in the life story of the man who conveniently forgets to mention the wedding ring he left in his posh hotel room.

_He's married, sweetheart, and his lady collects knives._

Sylar is so used to—so _sensitive_ to being lied to that he begins mentally pasting other visages over the ones surrounding him: Angela Petrelli, Elle Bishop, Matt Parkman . . . He realizes it's a little like gearing up for the kill, running through his supply of loathed faces like this, but he—

_Holy shit my face is on the wall._

His somewhat self-pitying train of thought crashes to a halt, and he whirls. Slaps his palms down on the bar and ducks his head.

Oh, god. He needs to change his face. Okay, find somebody to touch, find somebody to touch, find somebody—

Nokturna's walls are painted in what appears to be a chronological sequence of murals. Starting at the front entrance and running clockwise around the room, they masterfully depict two separate series of brutal murders. The first series begins and continues unaccompanied for two adjacent walls: this is where Sylar repeatedly finds his own image. He'd like to think it's merely an uncanny resemblance, but the background delineation of the passing decades, along with, you know, all the disembodied brains lying about, convinces him otherwise.

Sylar grabs a slender, female arm reaching out for a drink. Leather-sheathed, it is ripped from his grasp, sloshing him with vodka, before he can get any bare skin or DNA. Damn.

The entries in his own series become sparser as the second begins high on the back wall above the bar. Here, a child is born, in an illustration so unnecessarily graphic that Sylar wonders whether he really wants to be in the room when Claire delivers and not off in some corner with his hands over his eyes. Of course, it probably doesn't help that the squalling baby in the mural is bursting out of its mother with a mouthful of pointy teeth and a set of pinkish, bat-like wings.

Good place to put it, over the bar. Look at that thing and you _need_ a drink. A dozen of them.

The child is shown aging, growing first into a pink-cheeked, yet vaguely demonic blond boy, and from there into a young man. The carnage depicted in his life story is of a different sort: primarily blood-letting. In segment after segment he sinks his teeth into the necks of sleeping victims, draining them, splattering their sheets with crimson. Here he stretches his wings, now grown to a more impressive length, in silhouette by the light of a full, white moon. Among all of this are strewn random installments of Sylar's story, and he realizes with a jolt that if he studies the victims on the mural hard enough, he can recognize most of them. Even Alison Crow, one of his aforementioned nightclub victims, is present, although she appears to be naked for some reason. He supposes the artist decided to dress history up a little. Undress it.

So, the mural—in part, at least—depicts his life as a series of factual, documented kills, interspersed with . . . What? Some sort of vampiric fantasy.

_And_ he realizes all at once that the people in the line outside, the people on the floor at his back, are not dressed as Halloween gypsies or pirates or anything of the sort. They are dressed to fit their varying ideals of the mythic vampires of yore.

Nokturna is some sort of trendy nightclub for role-playing vampire enthusiasts.

Dear god. Even Gabriel would find this nerdy.

As if summoned by that simple reflection, the watchmaker seems to return to him, this time without the aid of illicit drugs, no more than a nagging voice inside his head and yet solid enough to anchor him in the midst of his tumultuous thoughts:

_Stop grabbing people and reaching for dirty shot glasses_, the voice advises. _You don't _need _new DNA. Pick somebody you've already got and go with that. _

Well, of course. He feels pretty idiotic now, but he supposes he must have lost his bearings for a moment. That mural threw him for a loop. Right, then. Change into . . .

_Rutherford_. Gabriel's voice makes the snap decision. _You're getting used to that one. _

But that's what Sylar doesn't like. It would be too easy to get stuck in the form of a man Claire used to adore, to wake up with Rutherford's eyes, Rutherford's arms encircling her. Besides, he's a fifty-something, wealthy Texan businessman. How the hell would a man like that find himself in a place like Nokturna?

Shit. What was he thinking, anyway, coming here in his own skin? Sylar admonishes himself as a fool of the most dangerous sort. He has a _family_ now, or at least he's developing one. In any case, he's not untouchable anymore, can't simply chop down any witnesses who happen to be present when he'd rather be alone, no matter what kind of cake they show up with or what godawful club they happen to dance in. _Yes, _he's wary of the hazards that come with shapeshifting too regularly, just as _yes_, he told Claire he _might_ not have to kill anybody. But a father—father-to-be, in his case—does what's necessary, even when it's unpleasant.

_So do it. _

All right, then. Pick a face.

Well, that's not so difficult, after all. He did grab that boy's face in the alley. Claire's _friend. _What was his name? Joshua? In case Sylar absolutely cannot avoid killing Laughlin, he feels he might as well implicate someone who irritates him.

On second thought, Claire would be furious. Doubly furious. Back to square one, then.

"Is it that time already? My, it does fly, doesn't it?"

On reflex, Sylar reacts to the question, glancing sideways to see the plump, curvaceous woman seat herself on the stool at his left, her long red skirt dangling about her ankles. Her skin is a deep, chocolate hue, eyes large and sparkling, hair close-cropped and spiked. Her smile is very white and, he thinks, a bit too wide. Too knowing. He doesn't like that look on anybody, and on a stranger, it unsettles him even further.

"I wouldn't worry," she tells him in softly British-accented tones. Tilting her head toward the floor, she adds, "About this lot, I mean. Nobody tattles here. He draws up the list on his own to make sure of that. It's rather exclusive. Oh, people show up night after night, but you can't _really_ get in unless he approves you, and he won't unless you've made a certain lawless name for yourself."

Sylar shakes his head, lost.

"He?"

"He," she repeats, then tosses her head toward the mural. "Leslie."

Leslie. The man alongside himself in the mural . . . The vampire, preying on its victims by night as they dream . . .

Leslie Laughlin, the Sleepless . . .

Oh.

He narrows his eyes at the woman.

"How do you know me?" he asks her. "_Do _you know me? I mean, that—that—those paintings . . . I don't—"

"Not yet," his unexpected informant cedes. "But I hope to. We'll have a chance to speak afterward, you and I."

"After—?"

"Shush, now." She says it with the confidence of an adult addressing a garrulous but basically well-mannered child. She _can't_ know him. "Turn round and try to be modest. They're going to make over you like you're the second coming."

Perhaps it's her honesty, in the midst of all that rampant lying. Perhaps it's because she seems to have a handle on the unforeseen _nonsense_ that is the mural glorifying his lucrative career as a ruthless predator. Whatever it is, he complies. Shuts his mouth and turns in his own face, his own form, to greet whatever strangeness awaits him.

The ear-battering music dies without warning, leaving the throng to stammer to a halt, gazing to an fro in the strobe lights. Slowly, their murmurs—variously confused, angry, drunken, or some combination of the three—die off, save for one:

"Oh, my god!"

The voice is loud, boisterous. Heads turn toward it, and the crowd of drinkers and would-be dancers gradually parts, forming an aisle leading straight to Sylar. He stares down the center of it. The face at the other end is awash in excitement that's rapidly approaching euphoria.

"Oh, my god . . !" the man says again. He looks to be in his mid-twenties, has Bon Jovi hair, and is clad in a flamboyant, glittery-black outfit that, despite Nokturna's theme, strikes Sylar as some sort of glam rock get-up.

_Good god,_ he thinks, looking him up and down. _Did the nineteen- eighties make a come back when I wasn't looking? _

He hoped he'd never live to see the day. And he plans on living forever.

Then he sees the silky fabric dangling from the sleeves, stitched onto the seams from wrist to hem. If the man spread his arms wide, the cloth would open to represent wings. Bat-like, same as the boy in the mural.

The man approaches, thin and boosted beyond his average height by the leather boots he's wearing. His face is pale to the point of colorlessness, though his eyes have deep, purplish shadows encircling them. Sylar can't tell if it's real or makeup.

The crowd is watching. The man stops a foot from Sylar and stares at him, rapt, fists beneath his chin, giddy as a child at a Christmas parade. He smiles, revealing canines which have been filed to points.

"Are you here to kill me?" asks Laughlin.


	29. The Greater Machine

**Hey, guys! I know, right? Again, I rise from the dead. I LOVE doing that! *fistpump* **

**So, listen, what I wrote in my A/N last time was true-most of this new chapter was finished, but the fact is, I've been so busy with the semester projects and reading that I've barely even had a chance to open the file where I store this fic since then. I should be studying and composing papers _right now_, to be honest, but I needed a break! Fan fic is such a lovely mini-vacation, is it not? On that same note, please excuse any little mistakes in this chapter. I proof-read, but I'm well aware of how that particular skill suffers when I'm in a rush. :)  
**

* * *

Leslie "Lestat" Laughlin, permanent insomniac, occasional partaker of blood, and voracious Sylar-enthusiast, sits in his private room in the back of Nokturna and basks in the presence of his idol. The high backs of the gothic chairs emerge like deep-violet wings from behind their shoulders as the two men sit facing each other, between them a low rectangular coffee table on which sit two goblets of scarlet wine. At least, Sylar's is wine. He fears Laughlin is taking this _vampire_ fetish a little too seriously.

"I guess some people might say you're more zombie than vampire," Laughlin allows, staring. "But I don't see the point in arguing semantics. You're immortal, _that's_ the point. The real deal. My god . . ."

Sylar isn't sure that's a casual turn of phrase. He has a creeping feeling that this man—this platform heel-jacked, ivory-powder pancaked, _glittery_ man—might worship him. To say the very least, it doesn't give him the surge of satisfaction he expected from deification.

"I've followed your work for as long as I can remember," Laughlin informs him, in a tone that suggests he ought to be flattered. "Back since I was a kid. I knew even then what you were. The bodies would turn up every so often—random victims, but always that same M.O. Nobody believed me. Told me to get my head outta my ass. _Guy's gotta be dead by now_, they'd say. But I knew . . ."

"How did you know?"

Laughlin shrugs.

"Call it a gut instinct," he says. "I was sure our paths would cross one day—sure you'd be the death of me." He chuckles, gesturing at his makeup and flashing his fangs. "Figured I better get my immortality in while I still had the chance."

"Leslie . . ." Sylar bites his lip for a moment, drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair. He glances down and finds the uneven texture is due to a pair of gnarled hands carved into the oak. Retracting his hand uneasily, he observes, "You seem a lot more . . . um . . . _comfortable_ with discussing your own murder than I'm used to."

"What can I say, man?" The younger man—_much_ younger—smiles. "You fascinate me. Everything about you."

He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and curling his fingers together.

"Let's trade," he suggests eagerly. "What do you say, huh? A little _quid pro quo?_ Tell me about your best time, and I'll tell you about mine." Modestly, he amends, "I mean, if you're interested."

"My best—?"

"Just tell me this, then," interrupts Laughlin. "It _is_ in the brain, isn't it? In _Activating Evolution_—ha, like you need _me_ to tell you—but Suresh wrote that it was in the brain. Then later his son said it wasn't the brain, after all, it was the blood, but I've tried it both ways, and I—"

"It's in the brain," Sylar supplies quickly, before he can elaborate. _Just please, god, don't ask me if I eat it. _

Laughlin sits back, satisfied.

"I thought so," he says. "I did a little tinkering, but I never got anywhere with it. 'Course, you had the means to the material, didn't you? You should've seen _my_ first kill: some heroin-addicted hooker I found in a gutter. Talk about a fried brain. I don't think she even noticed when I started up my autopsy saw."

"How many people have you killed?" Sylar asks, genuinely curious and more than a little disturbed at the imagery the man has evoked.

Laughlin's lashes flutter downward, somewhat ashamedly.

"Oh, don't ask me that," he murmurs, but it's obvious from the small smile on his lips that he's flattered Sylar is taking an interest. "My number's embarrassing, compared to yours."

That puts things into perspective a bit. Unnerved or not, Sylar can't really judge.

"I don't even know mine anymore," Sylar admits, forcing a chuckle. Time to _make friends_ with this weirdo and get back to New York as soon as possible. "If you _really_ want to hear about my, um . . . best time . . ."

The other man perks up immediately. If he had the bat ears he obviously desires so much, he'd be pricking them.

"There was this girl," Sylar continues, hating every second of trying to bond with Leslie. "I mean, she _was_ a girl. Well—" He laughs. "She's still a girl, she just grew up. So it's . . . you know, completely on the level now."

He can see he began to lose Laughlin the moment he referred to _this girl_ in the present tense. Perhaps he made a mistake brushing over the inappropriate parts. Hey, she _used_ to be a girl.

"Her ability," he continues, regardless, "is what I aspired to even while taking dozens—_hundreds_—of other lesser abilities."

"I don't understand," Laughlin interjects, shaking his head so that his blonde curls shift around his high cheekbones. "Did you kill her or didn't you?"

That's actually kind of a good question.

"It's not that easy with this girl," he replies with a vague, sardonic smirk. "I killed her, yes, but she sort of . . . shook it off her shoulder. And now she needs my help. She's the reason I'm here."

"Because of a _woman?_"

Laughlin looks highly skeptical. However, he must read displeasure in Sylar's features, because he puts up a hand and hastily adds:

"Hey, man, that's your business. Only this chick must be some new brand of bangable, that's all I'm saying. I mean, you killed the woman outside that nightclub back around 2030, and she was a knockout. What was her name . . ?" He looks up at the ceiling a moment, trying to remember. "Crow! That was it. I looked up her profile. Hey, what did she have, anyway? I mean aside from herpes, probably."

He laughs.

"Seduction," Sylar replies, stony-faced.

Laughlin's eyebrows shoot up. He looks intrigued, thrilled beyond words. Rapping his knuckles absently against the tabletop, he darts a few glances at the door, uncertain.

"Listen!" he blurts at last, unable to contain himself. "Let me get a girl in here, okay? I mean, I gotta see this shit. It won't take five minutes, I swear—"

He's already darting up from his chair when Sylar reaches across the table and clamps down on over his fingers. With his other hand, he plants Leslie back in his seat.

"Hey, man," Laughlin says slowly but laughingly, looking down at Sylar's hand. "I wanted to watch, you know? I'm not looking to participate."

Sylar releases his hand and his hold and sits back.

"I didn't take Alison Crow's power, Leslie."

"But you sliced her, just like the others," Laughlin reminds him, confused. "I put her on the mural. What happened, she got you so riled up you popped her top by accident?"

"Holy shit," Sylar mumbles beneath his breath. Sighing heavily, he explains, "Leslie, look . . . I'm trying to empathize with you. Um—okay. How was your home life? You didn't by any chance have a really terrible childhood, did you?"

_Please?_

Laughlin shrugs.

"Parents were a little suffocating," he says. "You know how they can be. _Leslie, do this. Do that. Leslie, where _were_ you last week, we almost filed a missing persons report!_"

"Right. Okay. Not _quite _what I'm looking for. What about jobs? Did you ever have a job that made you feel—"

"I opened this club with some of the cash from my inheritance," Laughlin chuckles, amused at the very idea of menial labor. "It's the first job I've ever had." He puts out his arms. "I'm privileged, man. What can I say?"

Sylar almost wants to kill him on principle.

"Well . . ." He soldiers on valiantly, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. "Is there someone you love? Like a woman?"

Laughlin stares at him blankly.

"A man?"

Never know unless you ask.

"A _dog_, Leslie! Come on, you've got to give me _something_."

He shakes his head.

"I had a ferret once," he supplies casually, shrugging. "Shit, what was its name . . ? Sprinkles? Spr—Spritzer? I don't know, man, what do you name a ferret?"

Without inviting the image, Sylar envisions a ferret—or perhaps it's a weasel—rendered stiff via chemicals and sawdust, resting amidst its fellow victims on his father's mantel. He imagines picking it up by its tail and beating Laughlin to death with it.

"No idea," Sylar says evenly. "I never had a pet."

He flattered himself, a long lifetime ago, that Claire was a pet of sorts. Now he realizes it was the other way around, and he was probably fortunate she remained unaware for so long. He was a cast-off, not-quite-socialized dog prone to biting, but would have come crawling at her beck, pleased to be kicked if it meant she'd scratch his tummy in the midst of a better mood. Maybe it's still that way. He had it all mixed up when he explained the nature of their relationship.

"What I _really_ wanted was a snake," Laughlin expounds. "One of those big pythons, you know? And you feed it the little mice and stuff? Good for my image, I've got three of them now. But Mom wouldn't let me have one. So I get a _ferret_ instead, can you believe that? Anyway, I accidentally shut it up in my closet. Didn't know the damn thing was dead till I tried to put on my favorite pair of leather boots. Shit was _nasty_."

And with that lovely story, he reaches the end of Sylar's patience.

"_Look_, Leslie," he growls, still managing to reign in the urge to bash open the man's head and have done with it. His hope that a bloodless resolution will be reached is flickering like a flame at the bottom end of a wick. "I'm in kind of a grave situation here."

"Ha, is that a pun?"

"_No_." Okay, that's it. It's over.

"Oh, sorry."

"This girl—"

"Right, what does that have to do with me, exactly?"

"_Well_, Leslie, she happens to be carrying my demon-spawn right now, and unfortunately, if I don't get your ability, it's just not going to work out, so—"

"_Ohhh!_" Laughlin blurts, as if finally arriving at a great understanding. "I get it . . . Oh, you had me confused! It's not about _her_. It's _you_—you and the _little_ you. Right?"

"Right." Sure. Sylar, Jr. What the hell.

"Wow . . ." Laughlin marvels at the idea of his icon's foray into the exciting world of procreation. "So, what's the plan? World domination? Come on, you can tell _me_."

"Yes. Yes, world domination." Yes, the plan is to laugh maniacally while his super-powered sons whip the minions into erecting the giant _Sylar_ monuments with fewer mutinous grumbles and more jaunty tunes. "Look, Leslie, I tried to empathize with you."

Really, he did.

"And I'm terribly sorry." That's true, too—but more for Claire than Laughlin. "But there's really nothing left for me to do except . . . Well, you know."

Rather than throwing his arms up to shield his head or making a pitiful attempt at escape, Laughlin smiles and makes a brief gesture as if to say, _Forget about it. _

"It's all right," the young man assures him. He rises from his chair and takes a low seat on the edge of the coffee table. "Hell, it's my dream."

That Sylar simply can't understand. Not that it makes any difference, but:

"Leslie, how can being murdered be your dream?"

Laughlin contemplates this and reasons, "Maybe it's because I never had a _real_ dream, you know? I mean, a sleeping one. Anyway, does it matter? I've been waiting for this since I was a kid. I even designed my headstone around this moment. Do you want to know what it's going to say? It makes even more sense, now that I know what you're going to use me for. Like it really was destiny. _Do_ you want to know?"

He lies back across the table and grins.

"_Thus I become part of the greater machine_," he recites.

The phrase trips some taut string of memory.

_Like it or not, we _are_ the same machine,_ Gabe had said. Gabriel 2.0, he called him. The same, but different.

_I think all the additions to your DNA have made you insane. _Another voice, dusty from a crypt. Who is that? Bennet. Noah Bennet who hated him but maybe had a point.

Maybe he becomes someone new—someone _just a little bit_ different—every time he kills and acquires.

_My god . . . _Sylar reflects. _How many people do I have in here?_

Leslie frowns, noting the slightly glazed, reflective appearance of his idol's eyes.

"Would it be more fun if I ran?" he offers considerately.

Snapping back to the situation before him, Sylar stops himself from answering in the affirmative.

It's no fun if you fake it.


	30. The Palm Reader

**Wheee, the semester is over, and I have a new computer! My old one had literally begun to fall apart, and I'm not talking about keys. It was very sad, like having coffee with an old friend, and he suddenly loses a nose or something. :( Anyway, updates should be more frequent now. I know I always say that, but I see no reason to stop. **

**Now to quickly address a reviewer who expressed a wish that I NOT continue the Sylar/Gabe convos, as they make him appear truly crazy: Honestly, I think dear Sybrows IS a little crazy (at least). It's why I love him. That said, I don't see Gabriel's manifestations as evidence of dissociative identity disorder or something similar. To me, it's just an interesting way for him to dialogue with himself from his varying perspectives (guy can be conflicted ;)). It happens again in this chapter, but I assure you it won't be a daily occurrence in his life. Stress is a factor. Hope that allays your concerns. :)**

* * *

The crown of Leslie Laughlin's head rests on a corner of the table like a curly blond salad bowl. Poised over the rest of him, Sylar peruses the contents of the exposed brain. He should have found it by now, really, only . . .

Oh, god, that's good. He had _forgotten _how good it could be. That's—that's . . . That's better than sex.

"Don't be ridiculous," scoffs the increasingly all-too-frequent voice of Gabriel Gray."Of course it's not better than sex."

Although, sort of.

_No! _Sylar hastens to chide himself before Gabriel can get in another unwanted word. _It's not . . . _better, _it's just . . ._

"Different. Right." Disdain is apparent in the watchmaker's tone. Of course Gabriel, long-term celibate that he was, _would_ have trouble identifying a greater pleasure.

"I hadn't done it in a while, all right?" Sylar snaps. "I hadn't done it in a long time, and . . . it felt nice. That's all."

"Better than last Tuesday night with the hot fudge sauce?" challenges Gabriel.

Sylar shakes his head, flushing slightly at the memory.

"You know, she only did that because I came down for a drink and caught her halfway through the jar."

"I didn't hear you complaining."

"Well, that's because I literally could not _speak_, Gabe; she was dipping _celery_ in it. Ugh."

"Says the man wrist-deep in brain."

Gabriel's right, though. When Claire Bennet shoves your shoulder blades up against the refrigerator door while sucking hot fudge off something—even if it _is_ celery—you don't argue with her. He just wishes Gabriel wouldn't be so frank about the matter, and he can't help wondering whether it ought to bother him that his incorporeal alternate ego has apparently been keeping the minutes of his and Claire's private encounters. He wonders if it's even possible for Gabriel to be getting off on it somehow, given that the man only exists insomuch as he's _him_. Or if it makes any difference. After all, _he_ certainly—

"Would you _focus?_" Gabriel angrily calls his attention back. "You're the only guy I know who could zone out with a scene like _that_ in front of him."

"Because it's horrifying or because it's _fascinating?_" Sylar asks, sending back a barb of his own.

"Don't even try to psychoanalyze me," Gabriel responds, and Sylar can just _see_ the sneer on his face. "I wear the eye loupes around here. You're just the brawn."

"You're calling me stupid." Sylar bristles.

"I'm calling you _slow!_ Could we hurry it up with Laughlin? I would like to get back to Claire some time before she _miscarries_—or have you forgotten why we came here?"

"Maybe you should stop distracting me!" he suggests. "Coming out here while I'm _working_, talking about hot fudge sauce and—and _insulting _me!"

Gabriel takes a beat.

"Fair enough." And he's gone. Well, that was easy.

Sylar turns to his task with renewed concentration and determination. Annoying apparition though he may be, Gabriel _is_ right. He can ponder the many joys of exploring the human brain during the plane ride back to New York. The gory instant replay will undoubtedly beat the cloying in-flight film.

Besides, Laughlin's brain is standard fare. Not like his. Not like Claire's. He finds what he needs within the next three minutes, and the corpse before him becomes just one more scrap heap. Stepping back, he puffs a vaguely anticlimactic sigh. He's going to miss sleeping.

Ah, well. New timepieces can be acquired, along with new books. These new hours will have to be filled, and they will pass unrelentingly, after all, whether he writhes in boredom or not. He hears you never sleep again once a baby comes, anyway. Eight more months and it will all pay off. His kid will start crying in the A.M., and he'll be there like he teleported, the most reliable father in existence.

Sylar is searching Laughlin's frilly coat, picking through the lace ruffles looking for a spot to wipe his hands, when the unmistakable sound of an electronic keycard slipping into the door to the private room reaches his ears. He lifts his bloody hand at the warning _beep_ of admittance, ready to immobilize or slay the intruder.

He forgot the woman from Nokturna's bar as soon as he found himself alone with his target. Now she reminds him as she enters the room, flicking her eyes over the scene without so much as a surprised fluttering of the lashes. In her hands she carries a wide, shallow bowl of the ornate sort Laughlin would have found useful in decorating.

"I brought you some water," she says, letting the door slide off her wide, round hip. It shuts with a _clunk_, a decidedly loud, secure _clunk_, and she does not look afraid to find herself locked in a room with a serial killer and his latest victim. If anything, she looks as if she came on business.

He doesn't respond, so she lifts the bowl.

"For your hands," she clarifies. And she sets the bowl right down on the table, actually sliding Laughlin's ankles apart to make room. She steps back and waits, regarding him as he stares, almost wary at her eerie state of calm.

"You don't rattle, do you?" he observes after a fashion, moving to examine the water as if it might be acid or some other silly, pointless trap.

"Rarely," she answers. "Not part of my nature, if you get me."

He thinks he gets her, and he also thinks she must be rather arrogant to stroll into the room for a chat about abilities. If she thinks Laughlin's extremely recent death somehow protects her from the same fate, she doesn't know much about sprees—or him in general. After all, he strolled into Kirby Plaza on the giddy expectation of annihilating 0.07 percent of the world's population.

The water tests all right, so he plunges his hands in, swishing them around beneath the surface.

"Thank you for the water," he says, meaning to dismiss her. He can be arrogant, too, and he'd like to get away with only one new murder on his head.

"I have an ability, also," she informs him, again far too nonchalantly.

"Is that right." He feigns disinterest, flicking the water off his fingertips. Diluted blood hits the surface and whirls away in ribbons of pink.

"Don't you want to know what it is?"

"Telling me would be . . . unwise."

"But don't you?"

"Yes." _God damn it._ Of course he does.

"I'm a precog," she states with obvious pride.

"Oh." Sylar tries not to roll his eyes in contempt, but it's an unavoidable reflex. "I've killed you before, then."

Yet another anti-climax. He imagines Mendez, and the white-eyed painting sessions, and the indecipherable results, and it's all _so_ worthless. Hell, if he'd never killed Mendez, he never would have killed Virginia, but he did, and for what? So a Japanese man with a hero complex could put a sword through his chest? No, no. Screw precognition. A caffeinated shot of misery and paranoia, that's all it is.

"Not _me_," the woman nevertheless insists. "Name's Shawnda, by the way."

"Someone like you, _Shawnda_," he tosses over his shoulder. Same difference.

"Not—like—meee," she sings at him.

His resolve shatters after a few seconds of determined disdain. Craning his head around, he finds her grinning mischievously and can't help but return it in some measure.

"All right," he relinquishes. "Tell me."

She strides around him, skirt swinging, and seats herself on the edge of the table, somewhere in the curve of Laughlin's waist, pushing his motionless arm aside.

"I read palms," she states.

He quirks a brow.

"I touch a person's hand with _my_ hand—like so."

She raises her right hand and presses it flush against the left one, finger to finger and palm to palm. It reminds Sylar of the line from _Romeo and Juliet_, the one about letting lips do what hands do, and he wishes he were already home with Claire. But Shawnda continues.

"And I experience his entire life, from cradle to grave, within a matter of minutes. I know when he's going to die, how he's going to die, who and-or what kills him, what he's thinking about, looking at, feeling . . . And I know everything that's going to happen to him in the years—or weeks, or days—before that final moment."

She drops her hands onto her skirt, the demonstration complete.

"I've been told it looks like I'm having a fit," she says. "Then it's over, and I come to, and I remember myself. I forget me while it's on."

Sylar can't deny he finds it intriguing, and it would be impressive, except—

"Nothing happens when you touch your own hand."

She shakes her head.

"Kind of useless," he remarks.

"Think so?" She raises her eyebrows. "I'm twenty-two, and I've lived centuries, through all kinds of lives and loves. I even read Leslie's palm once." She glances down at her murdered acquaintance. "It's where I met you for the first time."

"Then you knew I was going to kill him."

"His life hardly inspired sympathy. You heard what he did to that addict." She laughs briefly. "And I'm afraid if you seek compassionate souls—bleeding hearts, what have you—you've come to the wrong club. I've known Leslie for years, and _I_ certainly don't mourn him. Wouldn't have stopped you if I could have done."

"Exactly what is it you want from me?" Sylar demands.

Her big, brown eyes alight with mirth, and perhaps a touch of mishief.

"Oh, I love a man who believes in cutting through the bullshit."

"And I love a woman who's forthright about her motives," he returns with a smirk. "Rare animal though it may be . . ." He'd love to count Claire as one, but doesn't. Maybe someday. . . In any case, the moral coolness pervading Nokturna is actually making him long for Claire's warm, if somewhat hypocritical, opposition. She'll hate it when she finds out what he's done. At the moment, that's a refreshing thought.

"Well, then," Shawnda says, "you and I really are made for each other, aren't we? It's just as well—I want you to make me immortal."

"Shawnda," he responds, stifling a snort, "that's—and it's not often that I say this—but that's not in my power."

"But it _is. _Please?" She extends an open palm toward him. He stares at it, alarmed as the implication dawns on him.

"I'm . . . I—I don't die," he stammers. "You wouldn't come out of it. Ever."

"Oh, I know. Just imagine—to see it all. To know it all. The centuries, the eras . . . the _ages_." Blinking the wonder from her face, she shoves her hand further toward him and repeats, "Please."

"That's why you brought me the water," he realizes. "It wasn't for me, it was for you."

"I thought it rude to enter eternity with dirty fingers," Shawnda confirms with a smile.

He doesn't have to grant her wish. He knows this. On the other hand, there's nothing stopping him, and it would accomplish the silencing of a witness without further bloodshed. Still, he finds himself hesitant, and not entirely for his own sake. Must be Claire rubbing off on him, he assumes.

"Are you sure you want this?" he asks.

"Positive. If my ability has a name, it's _curiosity_. To the _nth_ power."

Sylar knows a little something about curiosity himself.

"I assume you know what they say about that."

"Well, you see I've handpicked my ninth life. And it _would_ be nice to _give_ a life for a change, wouldn't it, Sylar?" she wheedles. "After all, I've nothing to offer you. Well—aside from the water . . . which you _accepted_ . . ."

The smirk returns to his face with interest, and after a moment of consideration, he has to acknowledge, "I almost feel as if we could have been friends in—well, _extremely_ different circumstances."

"But we're going to be _so much more_." Her grin now unchecked, wide and white as the Cheshire cat's on her dark face, she wriggles her fingers. "I'm going to be _you_."

"That's, um . . . more than a little disturbing, actually. Has that ever occurred to you?" Yet he raises his own hand to line up with hers.

"After all I've witnessed, I don't bandy about the word _disturbing_."

"Well, get ready to change your habits," he warns her with a grin. "My life starts slow, but when it picks up, it _really_ picks up."

"I can't wait."

The moment their palms collide, Shawnda begins to quake. Her eyes roll back in her head, leaving nothing but blank whites peeking from the sockets. Sylar immediately steps back, startled despite her description, and the woman buckles, sliding to the floor. The seizure lessens in intensity as she slips into his life, and she lies trembling with the occasional twitch of a limb and sudden turning of the head. To an uninformed discoverer, she could be asleep, caught in the grips of a nightmare.

For the rest of her life.

Alone once more, he gives the room a cursory once-over for any unlikely traces of evidence. He likes the world to think he's dead and wouldn't want to resurrect himself with an accidental set of fingerprints. Finished, he begins to depart, happy to be done with the place. It was a neat job, in the end.

"The child spells disaster."

He halts at the door, the muscles in his back tightening as the words play his spine like a xylophone. He turns sharply.

Shawnda has stopped seizing entirely. And she is quite lucid. Staring at him.

"H—how are you awake?" He knows she can't have worked her way through infinity. That just . . . boggles the mind.

"Oh, don't act like _you're_ disappointed," she says with a pout, shifting uncomfortably on the floor. "You were supposed to live forever. I've never felt so gypped."

"What happened? Did you say something about a child?"

"You don't want to know. I know you don't. I was you at this very moment, a moment ago."

"Which child?" he demands, somewhat desperately. "Our child?"

"Our child, yes." Chuckling mirthlessly, she corrects, "_Your_ child. Poor Claire. I did love her so."

"Poor—?" Sylar strides over to Shawnda and drops to one knee beside her. Taking hold of her chin none too gently, he makes her look at him. "I don't understand. Maybe we shouldn't have the baby after all, is that it?"

"But you _are_ going to have it," she tells him. "You promised!"

She begins to laugh, but the tears come too quickly. Frustrated and undeniably rattled by her cryptic comments, Sylar releases her and darts to his feet.

"You're thinking about killing me," Shawnda says, quite accurately. "But you don't. You're still splintered from the last time. He'll always be waiting for you, you know—Gabriel. Your _splinter_. And he'll be with you on the beach."

"The beach?" he breathes.

"Oh, I don't envy you at all, my friend."

Her laughter intensifies, and a second later she begins to sob, rolling onto her side and curling into a fetal position.

Sylar flees, fumbling with the door as if it were a live opponent seeking to hinder him. As he fights his way through the club, he tries to keep it together, to remember that Claire would not look kindly upon a mass slaughter of every jostling, gyrating inmate in this lunatic asylum, that _They were begging for it_ would probably not seem as convincing an argument in New York as it does here, now. He soothes himself with a simple mantra:

_God damn __San Francisco__. _

**[] [] []**

On the plane, Gabriel—his goddamned _splinter, _what the _hell_ does that mean?—takes the empty aisle seat and defies Sylar's polite requests that he kindly shut the fuck up:

"Maybe she was lying. I mean, the beach? What beach? We live in New York City; beaches are a little hard to come by. She probably just assumed that we live in California. She's a palm reader, sure, just like any other hustler at a cheap carnival. It was a show. She was only trying to frighten you. Freak out the Bogeyman, wouldn't _that_ be something to tell her friends about . . . I mean, look how obsessed with you they all are. It's not that surprising, really."

Sylar would like to think so. Unfortunately:

"I know when I'm being lied to. _You_ would've found that one useful."

"Well . . . maybe she's crazy, then. You'd have to be a little nuts, hanging around a place like that."

"Yeah, maybe."

Sylar imagines the future—what, until now, he was _sure_ would be the future. He imagines San Francisco as a lonely place, a ghost town. The Golden Gate Bridge would be a pretty thing. He thinks he might like the Golden Gate Bridge at the end of the world. Claire could dive from it.

"_I'm_ not _your_ splinter," Gabriel mutters petulantly. "If you really believe that, you're just vain. You're so, so vain . . ."

Having thus effectively stomped Sylar's fingers loose from their shaky grasp on serenity, the watchmaker begins to hum.


	31. Blessed

**This fic is rapidly coming to a close, if you can believe it. 4 more chapters or so, and I think I can call her quits. I'm kind of excited to move onto other projects. I might even play around with Amazon Kindle's self publishing possibilities. Superfun. Anybody have any experience there? Yes? No?  
**

**So, bit of a short chapter here, as Claire tries to tie up a loose end before Sybrows gets back from Cali. Next chapter is all Sylar/Claire, all the time, I promise. ;) Should be along pretty quickly, too. **

* * *

In fiction, the departed linger to tie up the loose ends of their lives before moving onto whatever beautiful secrets await them in the next world. Claire knows that she does not have this luxury, would not have it even if it were fact. What she needs to do, she must do now—or never. Her unfinished business will die before she does.

How much easier it would have been to meet with Joshua Gallo if Sylar had not burned his telephone number in a fit of jealousy, damn it. How _impossible_ to be with a man who wants her so badly, yet can't bring himself to trust her for the time it takes to work a shift in a coffee shop.

Still. Claire sighs, able to acknowledge, at last, that she hasn't exactly made herself trustworthy. Maybe she _isn't_ trustworthy. It's an uncomfortable conclusion to come to, after so many years, and she shies from it.

The long way to Joshua is far more arduous than a mere call would have been. There's the trip to The Chocolate Chipped Mug, the last café she had ever _dreamed_ of visiting again, and the argument with its owner, Frank. She has to practically _stalk_ Joshua's older cousin around his shop in order to get him to listen to her, and he even threatens to have her escorted from the premises in police custody. Bullheaded and completely unafraid of being arrested—just how long would it take Sylar to dismantle a jail cell?—she persists, breaking him down bit by bit. Finally, he pulls her into the back, waiting on Sean, the barista, to make his way out of earshot with two steaming mugs and a plate of cake before turning to her with a grim, jowly face.

"Listen up close," he advises her. "Now, normally, I don't like sticking my nose where it don't belong. Josh is a grown man, and god knows I can't keep him away from girls like you."

"Girls like me?" Claire's nose wrinkles somewhat as the distaste she hears in the phrase.

"Oh, sure." Frank emits an unamused chuckle. "Little blond beauties—you twist him around your pinky finger with a sad story and a watery smile, and suddenly he's your case worker _and_ your admirer. Kid's been like that ever since that crazy son of a bitch shot his sister, and it's got him into trouble more times than a nice guy like him deserves. But you don't care about that."

"I don't know anything about that!" Claire protests. "And the only reason I'm _here_ is because I _do_ care. You think I _wanted_ to come here?"

"All I know," says Frank, overriding her, "is you did a bigger job on him than any girl before you." He brings his face closer, glaring. "That boy has _gone around the bend_, and it started as soon as he got back from chasing after you that day I let you go."

"Frank . . ." Claire remembers seeing Joshua in the pharmacy, how haggard and disoriented he appeared. "I swear to god, I never meant—"

"Don't tell me you didn't mean to," Frank said. "I don't care. You're not getting anywhere near my cousin again. I owe his mama that much, I guess. Now—out you go."

He gestures toward a door that leads into a back alley, and he turns to go. Claire takes a deep breath and tries one more time:

"I know what happened to him, Frank. I know why he's like this. Please—_please_ just give me a chance. I can help him."

Hands on his hips, Frank regards her in an unflatteringly scrutinizing manner, as if he is looking at a spider and trying to decide whether to squash it or keep it around to take care of flies.

"He comes in here about once a day," the older man relents, grudgingly. "And that's where you'll talk to him. _Here_."

"Thank you, Frank."

He merely grunts, but Claire grins widely, blissful to be granted this chance at redemption.

However, in her meeting with Joshua, as they sit at the counter while the television flashes unnoticed over their heads, Claire hits a rather significant snag:

"That's really thoughtful of you, Claire," says Joshua, the man who now looks not so much like Peter but those dark, prophetic paintings of Peter, "but I don't want your help. What's happened to me has made me . . . more than I was."

Claire shakes her head, uncomprehending.

"What do you mean?" she asks slowly.

"Well, see, I'm on the verge of something," he answers, sitting forward as if he's been dying to discuss it with someone. His bangs flop over one eye like a curtain. "Something really remarkable. You know, when I woke up in that alley, your face was the first thing I saw, but at the same time, it wasn't _your_ face. In that moment, I _knew_, I just knew that I was looking at Kay, at her—I don't know, her ghost or her angel. However you want to see it."

"And Kay . . . she was your sister, right?"

"More or less." He shrugs as if it's not important. "But you know, Claire, as much as I know that it _was_ your face I saw, there's this part of me that keeps insisting . . ."

He trails off and smiles that crooked grin that makes him look more like _her_ Peter.

"_Something_ blessed me that day. I mean, I don't know why, I don't think I deserved it . . . Hell, I _know_ I didn't. But I can make a difference now, Claire, and I _will_. You just wait. This world is going to change."

Claire can't keep the knowing laugh from escaping her lips.

"Don't tell me—you're gonna save the world."

"Yeah." He nods happily, and when she only laughs again, he joins her in a slightly befuddled manner, oblivious to her unspoken pity, and prods, "What?"

"Nothing." Claire can't help it. She just can't _not_ see Peter when she looks at Joshua. She can't _not_ like him. "It's just, you remind me of somebody, too."

"Maybe we knew each other in another life," he suggests teasingly.

"Eh . . . I only ever had the one." Claire removes a notepad from her purse and scribbles a name and number on it. "Look, Pe—um, Joshua. This man here—" And she rips the paper loose and pushes it toward him across the counter. "If anybody knows _anybody_ who can undo what's happened to you—"

"I told you, I don't want it undone."

"I know, and that's great if you feel that way. But if you even want it explained—if you just need to talk to someone who understands—you can't go wrong calling this man. Shit, I've called him so many times I've lost count."

"Well . . ." Joshua pulls the paper to him without even flicking his eyes over it, and Claire fears he may be a lost cause. So much for redemption. "Thank you, Claire. Your concern is touching."

"Sure."

Frank pokes his head out from the back to ascertain, Claire supposes, that she hasn't spirited Joshua away to unknown territories for use in slave labor. Joshua notes the spying, and he suppresses a chuckle, sipping at his coffee.

They share one of those private, in-joke moments she used to enjoy so much with Peter. Those moments made her feel so real and _normal_, and it's a shame that a voice from the television finally seeps into her consciousness, ruining it.

"_Famous—or should that be infamous?—billionaire socialite Leslie "Lestat" Laughlin has been discovered _dead_ in his __L.A.__ nightclub, in what appears to be a grisly homage to—"_

Claire's head snaps up—

"_Jo has the details. Jo?_"

—and her eyes lock on the television, where a reporter is failing to mask her excitement at breaking a new celebrity murder case. She catches snatches of it only, her brain working too fast for the program, which seems _decades—_indeed, eons behind.

"_Widely known that he fancied himself a vampire,_" she hears, and, "_partly decapitated_," and, "_hearkens back to an unsolved series of murders that shocked the nation and mystified agents for years back in the early,_" and, "_not allowing news teams inside the club, but I'm told there are no signs of a struggle_," and, "_have even suggested that Laughlin arranged it himself in order to fulfill a lifelong fantasy, but one has to ask oneself, would _anyone_—even a person as eccentric as Laughlin—actually _pay_ to be murdered in such a painful, horrific fashion? I don't think so, Rick._"

Good question. Rick doesn't think so, either.

_He did pay, though_, Claire thinks over the newly begun roaring in her ears. _Sylar got exactly what he wanted. And now he's coming home. To _you_._

_Welcome back, sweetheart. _

"People are sick," Joshua remarks. He has followed her gaze.

"Yeah." Numbly, fingers fumbling, Claire shoves her pen and notepad into her purse, zipping it up and standing.

"I mean literally," he says, chin in hand. "It's a disease."

Claire leaves as if fleeing a crime scene. She feels she is doing exactly that. Because, she realizes, Sylar didn't get what he wanted at all. He got what _she_ wanted.

_I'm a murderer_, she thinks.

Maybe it really _is_ catching.

**[] [] []**

Joshua Gallo is intrigued by Claire Bennet. She looks like Kay, yes, and she's quite beautiful, but he can't kid himself. This goes beyond a sexually charged hero complex, accusations of which Frank has long leveled on him. He decides to follow her little trail of bread crumbs, to go to Texas and see this man—he checks the slip of paper—Rutherford. Joshua is quite sure he needs no help, but maybe he can find out more about her there, more about himself.

Anyway, he'll probably need to get out of New York after he visits Jansen.

Jansen resides in the state prison, convicted of the murder of Kay Gallo and the attempted murder of her stepbrother. Prison hardens the weak, but Jansen was always a hard man, and it seems to Joshua as if prison has made him less substantial. Sanded him down, somehow.

Across the metal table, Jansen is highly remorseful. He is also mildly accusatory, blaming Joshua in part. More than anything, however, he seems miserable, and so Joshua listens without interruption or denial.

"I loved her," Jansen says, winding down. His dark eyes swim, and he seems to look past Joshua, beyond the solid, cinderblock walls. "I don't think I even knew I loved her. I'd give anything to have told her before she died—before I killed her . . . _God. _Isn't that the most selfish thing?"

When he has finished, Joshua raises his hands and focuses wordlessly.

Jansen disappears.

Unfortunately, so does the armed guard supervising the visit. Oh, well. There must always be sacrifices in the war of good and evil.


	32. What Petrellis Do

By the time Sylar steps out of the cab in front of his building, all he wants in the entire world is a hot shower and Claire. Maybe at the same time.

His apprehension that she might be gone upon his return fled him after his visit to Molly, but now it trickles back as he slides his key in and opens the door. He isn't even aware it's happening until he calls her name.

"Claire?" And his voice is too quiet, as if he's afraid no one will answer and is trying to protect himself from it for as long as possible.

He shuts the door. Takes a few tentative steps inward. Clears his throat rather loudly.

Nobody emerges.

She's gone. Suddenly, he is certain of this, all his self-assured visions of the future no more than ash heaped at the bottom of his heart.

She ran. She actually called his bluff (_was_ it a bluff?) and _ran_ from him. So now what? Chase her? He said he wouldn't . . . but he _could_. But didn't that get a little pathetic after a while? Wasn't that why he stopped for thirty years? Chase a woman too long, and you wind up in a suite with your nose in her hair, pressing a glass of wine on her while she rolls her eyes and threatens your life.

Okay, don't chase her. Just . . . distract himself, that's what he needs to do. He really enjoyed taking Laughlin's ability. He could go back and take Shonda's, as well, carve her open and see if it was any kind of ability at all. Maybe it was all bullshit; maybe she was crazy like Gabriel had suggested. In any case he wouldn't be thinking about—

"Claire?" He tries again, more audibly.

There's a padding of bare feet over head, and she appears at the top of the staircase, glowing in her pregnancy, golden hair pulled back in a ponytail.

"You're back!"

Sylar releases the breath he doesn't remember holding, and looks down at his shoes for a moment before stepping toward her, unable to keep the wide, almost jubilant smile from breaking open on his face.

"You don't know how I missed you," he informs her.

"Yeah, sure," she replies with a touch of sarcasm, reaching the landing at walking into his embrace. "It was probably a nice little vacation for you."

And he's too stupidly relieved to hear the dubious hope in her voice, as if she wants him to respond, _Well, now that you mention it, it _was_ nice to get away. _

"Did you miss _me?_" he demands instead, lightly. He's not having any more of her non-answering. And he next time he says _I love you_, she better cop up to that, too.

"Of course I did," says Claire, pulling back. "The whole time you were gone."

The words come out of her mouth on automatic, but she isn't all that surprised to find that they're true.

He stoops, takes her face in his palms, and kisses her. Hard.

**[] [] []**

"Claire—Claire, _stop._"

"Oh, are you gonna beg me now? Fight back, you big sissy."

"You know, that's not—_hey!_"

They topple off the front of the couch, and he employs a quick gravitational shift to slow her fall, so that she lands softly and without emasculating him via her careless knees.

"I said _no abilities_," she complains.

"And I said no wrestling while you're _pregnant_." He scoops her around the waist and tries to set her back on the cushions. "It could hurt the baby."

"What do you know about it?" She fights being placed on the couch, holding onto the bottom of it with her heels and locking her knees.

"I know _something_ about it." He tries to dislodge her feet by pushing the couch back. She takes advantage of his distraction and lunges. He's on his back before he knows it, staring up sourly at her where she straddles him, leaning on his stomach and grinning in triumph.

"Pinned you," she declares. "Round one to me."

"Okay, sure. Fine. You pinned me. Can we stop this now?"

"It's just eating you alive, isn't it? Getting beat by a girl?"

"I'm confused, actually. Clearly, pregnancy causes a woman to produce a massive influx of the _airhead_ hormone. What is the function of that, exactly?"

"Aw, somebody's snippy after his business trip."

"I'm not _snippy_, Claire. I seem to be the only person here capable of exhibiting common—"

"Oh, lord. Just turn over."

"Why?" He narrows his eyes.

Claire rolls hers.

"Well, I was planning on staking you in the heart with a crucifix, but I like to attack my enemies from behind—you know, because I'm non-confrontational. God, would you just _turn_ _over?_ I'm gonna give you a backrub, you suspicious jackass."

"Oh. Well. All right, then."

He complies as Claire snorts, rolling over to allow access to the musculature of his back. Her little hands are on him, and she's actually kind of _terrible_ at it, dear _god_, poking and prodding and causing him to grit his teeth against a surge of tickle-induced manic laughter. It's like she's finding bones he didn't even realize were back there and playing them like a xylophone. He lets her keep going, though, because it's such a nice gesture, and because there's something in her utter inexperience that's comforting, in a way. Seems Rutherford didn't get a lot of backrubs.

Her remark about him being _snippy _was her first mention of his trip. She still hasn't asked him about it—not a single thing, not even _Were you successful?_ He'd like to assume she simply has that much faith in him, but he knows her too well. She's avoiding the issue.

Maybe she doesn't want to know . . . but then, maybe she knows already. It's been all over the news. Apparently Laughlin was a minor celebrity of sorts, and his untimely demise has boosted him into loftier levels of fame. Of course, there's so little media technology—and no television, as she's noted before—in the loft that she could still be ignorant. Perhaps he'd do better to break the news himself.

"Claire, I think we should talk about _ow!_" Son of a bitch, is she using her _toes?_

"No good?" She pauses.

"No, it's, um—maybe just a little more to the . . . not there." He clears his throat. "Sorry. Listen, I think we should about L.A."

"L.A.?" She resumes the massage, more slowly. "Is that where you went?"

"Yes." He really doesn't see the point in mentioning Texas. He was in . . . well, a bad place when he paid his visit to Rutherford. Bringing it up is a sure way back. "I know I told you I might not have to kill anybody—"

"But you did," she finishes for him.

He's quiet for a few seconds. Her hands are still moving, and he supposes it's a good sign, even if they do make him writhe.

"I tried to avoid it," he says. "I _wanted_ to avoid it, because I knew . . . well, I know how you feel about it. And after what I told you, I really wanted to prove that I didn't _have_ to be that person, you know? That I could be someone else. That it's not . . . It's not really an imperative, is it?"

The questions hangs in the air for a moment, and it may be the first time he's ever truly acknowledged the idea. He is on the verge of a great self discovery—and then Claire digs her knuckles damn near into his lungs, and he bucks. Twists to grab her hand and, more kindly, resituates himself onto his back so that he can look up at her.

"Guess I need practice," Claire admits, somewhat sheepishly.

"Never mind," he hastens. His brown eyes meet her blue ones, and she feels like they are trying to bore into her brain. "What I'm trying to say is . . . I don't want our child to deal with this, and I don't see any reason why it should. He—or she—can _never know_ what I did."

"You mean what you _do_," she points out.

"No," he denies. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. What I _did_."

"Sylar . . ." She looks down for a second, loosened hair cascading over her face. "Don't kid yourself, okay? Don't kid me."

"I'm not kidding anybody. I have everything I want. Now I just have to keep it." His eyes are earnest, his tone even. There's a vow in there somewhere.

Claire meets his gaze.

"You know . . . you're sweet," she says, quiet unexpectedly for both of them. "I mean, usually you're not—but you _can_ be very sweet."

But there is absolutely _no_ vow in her voice, in her eyes, as he listens and looks back. Somehow, it's the exact opposite of a vow. And it hits him: the open-armed welcome when he returned, the miserable attempt at a backrub, the atypical endearments . . .

"Why are you being so nice?" he wonders, eyes and tone returning to their earlier state of suspicion. A colder state.

"It's just . . ." Her voice has dropped. "There's always going to be some reason, you know? Even if it's a good reason. You and me together—we've already found a reason to take a life. And, God, Sylar, our baby isn't even _born_ yet. We can't stop this now unless we stop it completely. You see that, right? I know you can see that if you try."

"What exactly do you mean . . ." He sits up. " . . . by _stop it completely?_"

But he knows already. Sylar remembers lying in this position beneath her months ago when they drank tequila, and he remembers coming home and feeling sure she had abandoned him. Everything in between suddenly feels like a dream.

"I can't be like my dad, Sylar," she tells him. "I don't _want_ to, any more than you want to be like yours. I can't spend my life justifying the unjustifiable. When I think about all the people I loved, I just . . . I can't let them down by becoming . . ."

"Me?" he guesses. "I mean, you say Noah, but really you mean _me_."

"It doesn't even matter what I mean. We have to stop this now."

Her face begs him to understand.

So, clearing the thunderclouds amassing over his brow, he does. In appearance, anyway.

"If that's what you want," he says. And he manages a smile, a tight, painful little curve of the mouth that is nevertheless a smile.

Claire seems taken aback. She blinks.

"You're not mad?" she asks.

He shrugs one shoulder.

"I can't pretend I'm happy," he says. "Where will you go?"

"I haven't figured that out yet," she answers. Just what he would expect of her. Short and short-sighted. "Listen, I really am sorry, okay? I meant it back when I said I considered you a friend."

"Sure," he replies. It's not sarcasm. It's just . . . _sure_.

Shockingly, he is really convinced that—if he keeps mainly to monosyllables, if he restricts himself from sudden movements—he might keep his cool, against all odds and ulterior emotions. They can end this on good terms, leaving potential for the future.

And then she tries to make it into a going-away party.

"Let's . . . let's just go to bed one more time," she suggests softly, maddeningly, gently palming his chest through his shirt. "One for the road, you know?"

"_Go to bed_," he echoes, chuckling as he runs his thumb over his lower lip. "Claire Bennet's version of _Go to hell._"

Smirking against the digit, she licks the pad of his thumb and sucks at it before nipping it with her teeth.

"You like it," she accuses playfully.

His eyes glint as he smiles, leaning in to kiss the junction of her earlobe and jaw.

"Two months ago," he whispers.

"Hm?" Her eyes flutter shut.

And suddenly, the pressure of his thumb beneath her mouth is unpleasant, crushing her lip against her teeth. His fingertips snake into the hair at the nape of her neck, tangling and tugging.

"Mmph!" she protests, fighting to shove his hand away. "What the _hell!_"

"I _liked_ it," he emphasizes, "_two months ago_."

He shoves, not hard enough to send her sprawling, but enough to knock her back on her heels. His face is hard, all traces of the forced, weak smile gone.

Ohhh, okay. So he _is_ mad. Right, she probably shouldn't have fallen for that one.

"I _liked_ it back before you got pregnant!" he rants, eyes flashing fire. "I _liked_ it before I said _I love you_ and you took it like I'd just complimented your goddamn haircut!"

"Oh, oh, of _course!_" Claire snaps, rubbing at her lip. "God, I _knew_ you were gonna hang onto that till you managed to _squeeze_ it out of me! Why did you have to say something like that in the first place, if it was gonna—gonna _eat away_ at you like this?"

"Well, jeez, we were _in bed_, remember?" he reminds her, as he flips her knee from around his legs and stands. Towering over her, he continues, "I mean, god knows you're so good in the sack, my higher brain functioning just flat-out _shuts down _when your legs open!"

"I never _said_ that."

"No, but why else would you have the unimaginable _audacity_ to think you could tell me you were leaving me and aborting the baby I just—"

"_Watch it, _you bastard—" she interjects furiously, scrambling to her feet.

"—killed a guy to protect, and then ask me for a goddamned _quickie_ before you start packing?"

"Since when did killing _anybody_ bother you?" she yells. "And if you want to know the truth, I already packed."

He stops, seething.

"_What?_"

"While you were gone," she informs him, lowering her voice. "I packed, and then I unpacked, and then I packed . . ."

Sylar passes a hand over his forehead.

"Why didn't you just go?" he demands, defeat in his voice. "I told you before I left, if you wanted to have the baby, _be _here. That's all you had to do, be here or _don't_ be here. How could even somebody as blond as _you_ mess up something so simple?"

"Look . . ." Claire swallows and crosses her arms over her chest, taking a step back. "Don't be mad—"

Oh, god.

"—but before, I thought . . . I mean, I wanted the baby, but I didn't think _you'd _want it, or at least I thought you'd probably get sick of it real quick the way a lot of guys do, and I figured you'd probably get sick of me, too. Because the baby and me would be sort of a package deal, you know. A real annoying one. So I guess I thought—"

"You . . ." He pinches the bridge of his nose, shutting his eyes. "You were planning on walking out after you had the baby. You bitch."

He says this in a tone of dull, unemotional realization.

He's been a fool. And, what's worse, an optimist. Gabriel was right.

"I honestly thought it would be over by then," she insists. "And besides, I knew you couldn't hurt _me_, and I was sort of hoping you wouldn't hurt a kid if it was yours."

If it was—! Well, he supposes he earned that one. Little Molly and all . . .

"But then I told you about my father," he says, and at any other moment he might have burst into laughter at the irony. "My _inheritance_. Am I right?"

"Well . . . yeah," she admits softly.

"So let me ask you again: Why didn't you _just—go?_"

Claire shrugs, and the rims of her eyes are reddening.

"I missed you," she states simply. "I wanted to see you one more time, touch you and smell you and kiss you again, and I wanted to tell you to your face. I didn't want to sneak away like you were just a bad date or something."

"Well, I wish you had," he replies, only half sincerely. "I can't believe you thought this was better."

"Not better, just . . . less wrong. I mean, I know how it looks, but honest to god, I was trying to do you right. You know? I thought you deserved that much."

"No," he disagrees. "No—no, you were trying to screw me over. That's what Petrellis do, and I should have expected it."

"Don't—"

"Don't _what?_" he snaps, and his voice is rising, and he can feel the negative emotions clashing in his chest, building to a quick combustion. "Don't talk about the Petrellis? Is that it? Hey, did I ever tell you how happy I was when Peter _finally _died? Or how much I _hated_ the bastard? Or what about Angela? God, that diabolical bitch, I wish I'd killed her myself. And your father—I hated him, too. And, you know, I hated Parkman, and I hated Nakamura, and I hated Nakamura's little Japanese _friend_, and—"

"Sylar, would you please just—"

"—I hate Micah, and I hate Molly, and I _hate_ Rutherford, and to be quite honest with you I don't remember meeting very many people I _didn't_ wind up hating, but Claire Bear?"

Without warning, so quickly she has no time to register the motion save for the swoop of sudden speed, he whips her toward him. Her throat now conveniently encased by his fingers, he tilts his head toward hers.

"I love you," he reminds her, voice and face entirely devoid of the softness one would expect to accompany such an assertion. "I _said_ it. _Twice_, as I recall. I made it perfectly clear how I felt. You _knew_, and _you_—were _trying_—to _screw _me."

"I—I wasn't," she insists hoarsely.

"_Say it_," he growls. Yet still she insists:

"I _wasn't. _I swear."

He glances away for a moment to laugh bitterly, then turns his eyes upon her once more with renewed animosity.

"Cheerleader," he accuses.

So now he's going for the low blows. God, he _must_ be angry.

Claire glares at him in disgust and reaches up to push at his fingers. His grip only tightens, and now she can hear her blood pounding, feel it pressing at the back of her eardrums.

"Petrelli," he continues, the name leaving his mouth like the most foul slur he can summon. "Daddy's _lying_ little girl."

Snarling, he releases her roughly, stepping back.

"Noah _wanted_ me to kill people," he informs her. "He didn't give a _shit_ until I went after you."

"I'm leaving now."

He doesn't move to stop her, but he walks alongside her, then in front of her, spewing defamation as they go.

"And why did he even _have_ you Claire? Hm? The only reason _I_ got the pleasure of killing your mother is that the Company didn't get to her first. And oh, what about dear old Granny? Let's see . . . You know, I thought she was my mother once—can't imagine where I got such a ridiculous notion, probably had something to do with her _telling_ me so. Then _Papa_ Petrelli got in on the act, too, told me Angela tried to _drown me in the bathtub_ when I was a baby. Well, holy hell, thanks for the history, Dad! 'Course it all turned out to be a gigantic _lie_. Which was kind of disappointing, you know—I mean, that made three mothers! I was really racking 'em up for a while, wasn't I? Then again, I thought I was your uncle, so _that _was confusing. And speaking of uncles, did you know Peter wanted to nail you to the bed so bad he probably had to sit down whenever you walked into a room?"

Claire disappears into the bedroom. He leans against the doorframe, watching her back as she bends to remove her suitcase from beneath the bed.

"And let's not forget Nathan," he goes on. "Remember that time he launched a government initiative to round up and imprison his own kind? I'm a little hazy on the whole thing myself, probably because I kept getting tased and shot and attacked in diners. It was funny at first, you know, but it did get annoying after a while."

She comes back, shoulders past him, and makes for the staircase. He follows.

"Now there was a guy who knew how to look out for number one—Nathan," he commends, soles tapping down the steps. "And yet that initiative . . . You have to think there must have been a lot of self-loathing there, too. I think you get a lot from him."

He laughs shortly.

"These are the people you love, Claire. These are the people—the _dead _people, mind you—you just can't stand the thought of disappointing. Well, you'll have a hell of a time living up to the standards they set; I mean, they were _spotless_, all of them, just absolutely _immaculate_. But not me, right? I'm the Bogeyman. I'm a monster. I'm a black-hearted _villain. _I kill people, and I have the unbelievable gall do it without getting paid for it. I'm evil, and I'm dirty, and Claire Bennet's too good for me. Well, _hell!_"

Her hand goes for the doorknob, and he grabs her wrist, spins her around to look at her one more time. He wants to cut her. If they're going to part on awful terms, he wants them to be his.

"Go back to Texas," he suggests. "Poor little Sharon is mind mush, you know. I hear Rob's got an opening."

"I hope you die," Claire says blandly.

At her back, the door opens. Sylar's grin is wide and unkind.

"I hope you live forever," he replies. With a twitching of fingers, he puppets her backward over the threshold, and slams the door in her face.


	33. That Little Promise

In the weeks following the split, Sylar actually _wants_ to hear Gabriel again. After all, the watchmaker has been rather chirpy of late, and Claire's prolonged presence in his home has thrown her current absence into high contrast. Such _silence _reigns. He could be living in a vacuum but for the ticking of the varied timepieces and the muffled street noises from without.

Silence on Gabriel's part, too. It's as if Claire brought him out to begin with, maybe as a result of their night of drunken role play. Or, perhaps she merely called up some older, not necessarily better, but very different part of him with the mere fact of her company—as if Gabriel only came out to see, not his own counterpart, but Claire.

Of course, knowing Gabriel, he could be sitting with his knees drawn up, down a long, twisted corridor in the murky attic of Sylar's mind, head leaned against the wall, sulking in the dust and the darkness. In fact, Sylar would almost bet on it. He does sense a certain lingering air of punishment hanging above the table of watches.

So, months of antsy stillness wearing on his nerves, he decides to do what many do to recover from messy break-ups. He slips on a long, black coat and slithers vengefully out on the rebound. Not that he does it in the same manner as most. His standards differ—gender and age don't even factor—and he tends to end the date with a goodnight kill, as if he misread the memo.

He's on his third murder, post-Claire, when the absolute horror of what he has done strikes him, possibly for the first time in his career. Again, the manner in which it strikes him differs from the probable norm. For most, blood and gore denote horror. For Sylar, horror is futility.

He's just decimated a campsite in the Tennessee mountains. His target lies prone, partially decapitated, bobbed haircut shorn off with his signature incision so that, beneath her flannel, she could be either sex. Only her highly unflattering granny glasses, flecked with blood, give it away. Her companions likewise lie broken, never to rise of their own accord. The fire has gone out; the ashes are smoldering.

He waits. Waits for the sense of elation, of triumph. Waits for the ungodly _satisfaction_ that could compare with making love to Claire Bennet after a lifetime of pursuit (never before had routine pigtail-pulling included so much bloodshed). Waits for all of it.

Waits.

The camper is dead. Check. Companions decimated. Check. He _knows_ this is when he feels victorious. _The camper is dead_, and he can . . !

Bend things.

He looks down at his hands, camouflaged with their work. In the nighttime, the blood is as black as his attire, black like the gloves he never wears.

Bend things?

"Shit, what a . . . what a . . . _stupid ability!_" This followed by a noise of surpreme disgust.

Okay, now he's talking to himself. That's all right.

"How would you even use that? How do you even _discover_ something like—?" And now he's whirled about and is talking—in a very accusing manner, no less—to the corpse. Best leave off from that.

But, really, now, _bending things?_ He supposes if one were mired in quicksand out in some godforsaken jungle, with a tree limb inches out of one's desperate, flailing grasp, it might be useful. But that's a hell of a trip to take for the sake of justifying an abnormal ability.

"Spoons, maybe," he mutters, lip still curled with angry disenchantment. He seems to recall that bending spoons was once big in the field of psychokinesis. God only knew why, when _he_ could flip a tractor trailer on its back by drawing a _U_ in the air with his little finger. But perhaps they never thought of that, and only thought of spoons.

Looking up, he catches sight of a couple of stainless steel pots swinging from an overhead branch. Their handles have been curved to allow for hanging. He almost loses it.

"Are you absolutely _kidding me?_"

He turns in a swift circle, warping the trees in his immediate vicinity until they touch the ground, their newly crooked spines unbroken. The destruction—or rather lack thereof—does not cool his ire. What a goddamn _pointless_ power. He could have _uprooted_ them with his telekinesis. He does so now, with a grunt testifying to frustration rather than effort. He almost wishes it were harder. The killing has not expelled his pent-up aggression as it once did.

The pots ding onto the ground. Glancing at them, he espies a bag of marshmallows stuffed into one. Morosely, he summons them toward him, plops one onto a stick, and sits down with a huff. Sticking the marshmallow out over the hot ashes, fanning them a bit, he glowers upward at the pieces of moon, better viewed now that he has done some rudimentary landscaping.

Where is the excitement? It was there when he murdered Leslie, if such a willing participant could _be_ murdered. Now . . . nothing but emptiness. He has wasted his time, and the camper and her friends have died for nothing. With that thought, he feels . . . well, not guilt, but a certain comprehension of it. He can see why he _might_ feel guilt, if he were so inclined.

_Let's be honest, once you've got the ability to come back from a shot to the face, other abilities just don't hold the same spark. There's just no urgency anymore._

When did he tell her that? The day after he had left her on the floor in her cheerleading costume, soaked in tequila instead of blood. That was it. Now he knows why Leslie was such a rush. _Urgency_. Going out on the hunt to take home sustenance to his family—it was primal enough to stimulate even the most jaded part of his dark vanity. And it was new in the sense that he had never before provided for a family of his own. There was something in that, being a man who had a woman and a child—or, in any case, something that would be a child.

Not the bogeyman. Not a son to a cowing mother. Just a man.

He vehemently wishes he had never taken Leslie's ability. Insomnia sits on him like a second skin these days. Once, he tried turning off the ability with the Haitian's, but the moment he slipped from dozing to deep sleep, his eyes sprang open. As he told Claire when she held her hand before him, chagrined that it had healed, he cannot activate the Haitian's ability while asleep. It's one hell of a catch-22.

The marshmallow begins to crack and smoke on its underbelly, the top half still white as the overhead moon. He turns it, while an owl hoots in the trees, finding more fulfillment in its grisly kill than he has managed to find during all that rooting around in his own. Something crackles off to his left, some large animal that might scent the remains. It could be a deer. It could be a bear. Even the fear of wild beasts is lost to him. Immortal and endowed with power as he is, he has very little to feel, very little to think about in lonely hours. Now there are 24 of them every day. And, Circadian rhythm having lost its meaning, every day gives way to night only through variations in luminescence. He marks weeks from his calendar as he used to mark off days. They have about as much meaning.

_Very_ little to think about. Just Claire Bennet, is all. Claire and the months they spent cohabitating—_practically married_, he said to Molly—and the promise he made to her, from which she finally released him. That little promise, building cell by cell, which by now has joined the other three little promises her body reneged on. Never mind that he didn't _want_ to be released. Never mind that he can't even _sleep_ for keeping that damn promise.

"I hope you live forever," he whispers, repeating the last, damning words he spoke to her. It seems only fair—eternity is going to feel twice as long for him, without sleep. And now he's fighting with his ex-girlfriend _in absentia, _which just about makes the rounds of the looney bin, verbally speaking. "Forever and ever."

Disappointed with his recreation and brooding bitterly, he is only half-aware he says it. He could be sleep-talking, and in a sense, he is.

His body is wide awake, nerves humming, senses attuned to the night noises and the smell of the marshmallow over the fresh kills, like incense in a morgue. But for all that . . .

He's never been so tired.

**[] [] []**

"Look, not to be offensive or anything, but this wasn't my idea," Claire told Dr. Rhineman as she plopped herself down in the faux-leather chair across from his. "I think it's kinda silly, to be honest with you."

Dr. Rhineman smiles, a scrawny little man whose haircut is more approaching a mullet than he probably realizes. He wears suspenders over a white shirt. He also wears horn-rimmed glasses like her dad. She's _so_ glad he looks nothing like him.

"I know you're here at Micah's urging," he informs her kindly. "Actually, no one gets an appointment with me unless they come through Mr. Sanders. It's a sort of psychotherapeutic underground railroad, if you'll excuse the term."

"For your safety?" Claire fights down a smirk. She isn't sure why she feels so defensive.

"For everybody's safety. Well, just imagine if my client list were to fall into dangerous hands."

In that instant, she knows they're both picturing the same person. Dr. Rhineman seems to realize he may have just put his foot in his mouth, and he quickly continues:

"Micah told me you were reluctant, and I agreed to set up an appointment on the contingent that you would not be pushed. Now, I sense Micah may have done a little more pushing to get you here than I feel is appropriate, but I won't do that. We can talk about anything you want. We can talk about nothing. If you want to talk about the weather, we can talk about that."

"It's hot," Claire remarks with a lift of her brow, looking out the window. It is open today. The nature of Dr. Rhineman's practice does not always allow for such exposure.

"It's Texas," he agrees.

She smiles. There is a certain pleasure in being here, the place where she grew up, where she spent thirty years in doomed wedlock. She allows her eyes to drift around the small room, with it's bland art and soothing blue paint. She wonders if the potted cacti with their red blossoms are wise, given that some of his patients can probably hurl heavy objects with as little strain as hurling an insult.

"It's good to be back in Texas. It's where all my exes live," she jokes. When Dr. Rhineman says nothing, she shakes her head at her thoughtlessness and adds, "Old song. Before your time."

"I keep forgetting how old you are."

"Yeah, but I've kept my figure," she says, with a slight, sarcastic lilt and a roll of her eyes. "Honestly, doc, if you're trying to treat that whole _immortality complex_ thing, you're a little late. I've just about got that one worked out."

"I'm glad to hear that, Claire." He sits back in his chair a bit. "Although, I must say, that's quite an accomplishment, considering you tried to take your own life less than a year ago."

"A little _over_ a year, actually," she counters. "And I failed, so unless you want to treat me for a fear of success instead, I'd just as soon we moved on."

His smile is a little too lenient this time, a little too patronizing to tolerate.

"_Look_." Claire sits forward—as much as she can, anyway. "You think I don't know what this is? This isn't about me being un-freaking-killable, and it's not about me blowing my brains out. Micah wanted me to see you because I came back from New York a little bit different. Frankly, if he wasn't one of my oldest friends, and if he wasn't still grieving for Molly, I'd be pretty pissed. But he is, so here I am."

"What do you mean when you say _different?_"

Now she smirks openly.

"Okay, fine," she acquiesces, a tad bitterly. "Let's break it all down. The _old_ Claire would've come back all contrite and flagellated herself for a while. Shit, the old Claire would've come back the second she saw a chance to run. And the old Claire would've blamed every bit of it on _him_, but you know what? It ain't so."

Working herself up into an agitation, she leaves her chair.

"I _learned_ some things about myself in New York," she tells him. "And one of those things is that I'm not this—this . . . _nice person_. Okay? He's killing people again—yep! Not my fault, and not my problem. I am _done_ leading the crusade, I mean I am just about goddamn _finished_. If anyone wants to take up the flag and carry on without me, help yourself, it's laying right there, but as for me, I'll be over here getting a drink." She shakes her head, hands on her hips, pacing the small space of his office. "And I am not gonna apologize for anything that happened in New York. And I'm not gonna _cry_ about it, either!"

She shoots an accusing look at Dr. Rhineman as she says this, as if he demanded an apology or a tear. Mentally, he writes it off as transferrance—from Micah, perhaps, or a host of others.

"_Yes_, I just went through a horrible break-up. And _yes_, it was the second horrible breakup in a single year, and _yes!_" She laughs a little at the ridiculousness of it all. "The first one was the end of my thirty-year marriage! And yes, I put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger, but when you're gonna live forever, that's called being dramatic."

Her voice softens a bit, and her gait stills.

"Everyone wants me to say it was awful," she says, voicing her suspicion. No one has actually expressed this desire, but certain questions have implied the expectation. "I'm supposed to say I was scared the whole time, and that I tried to escape, and that when he touched me it was the most revolting thing in the world. It wasn't _anything_ like that. I mean, yeah, it was dysfunctional—_big_ time." Here, perhaps, she remembers Joshua and her brief foray into the job market. "But it was also the best relationship of my life. We just . . . We _fit. _I mean, it was the worst, too, don't get me wrong. The guy does have issues. On one hand, the fucking—sorry, doc—the fucking was great. But, then, there was the fighting, which was . . ."

She trails off and wanders back to her chair, sinking into it. She can't stand too long; her ankles get tired.

"Actually, the fighting was pretty great, too." She says this more to herself than to Dr. Rhineman.

He lets her settle down for a minute.

"Sounds like this man meant a lot to you," he finally observes.

Claire looks up at him, mistrust in her eyes. He interprets it accurately—did he mean _man_, or did he mean _monster? _And what was the repercussion on her own verdict?

"I'm not here to judge," he says with a shrug. "I wouldn't have him in this room for a _second_, but he's not here. You are."

"He did mean a lot," she admits quietly, the mistrust fading. "We kinda had this life started. I could've been happy, if it hadn't been for. . ."

"If it hadn't been for what?"

"Old Claire," she says ruefully and rolls her eyes again, this time at herself. "See, the fact is, _not_ being a nice person, it turned out shacking up with this raving lunatic wasn't such a good idea. It was kind of like a sinner playing house with the devil. Nothing good was ever gonna come out of it. A lot of _personal_ gratification, but there's more to life. Me and him just can't be together. I mean, it's perfect, but it's just not right."

Dr. Rhineman cocks his head while she is speaking. Some point has keenly captured his interest. When she finishes, she finds him piercing her with those grey eyes behind the ghost-glasses of her dead father.

"What?" she demands.

"So what you're saying," he asks, using his hands to square the air as only a licensed psychologist can do, "is that _nothing good_ came of it?"

"Oh, lord." Now _she's_ put her foot in it.

"Claire?" he prompts. "Do you want to talk about the baby?"

She glares at him for a long moment, idly stroking the bump of her belly which, over time, has transformed her from a perpetually athletic woman of barely legal appearance into some kind of human cabbage.

"Do you plan to tell him?" he inquires further.

She continues to glare. Slowly, her face relaxes into a smile, although not a particularly cheerful one.

"Tell me something, doc," she says. His lack of a notepad or recording device has just become apparent to her. "Where do you keep this client list?"

A little sheepishly, Dr. Rhineman taps his temple.

"Eidetic memory," he explains.

"Would you tell him about _that?_"

In answer, he only crosses his legs and raises a skeptical eyebrow.

"That's what I thought. I _loved_ the crazy son of a bitch, and I never told him _that_, either. You give him information, all he wants his more. He's got this _thing_ where he needs to _know_ everything." With effort, she pushes herself once more out of the chair. "If you'll excuse me, the baby is now telling _me_ to find a bathroom, ASAP. If there's a worse combination in this world than me and Sylar, it's pregnancy and good ol' Texas sweet tea."

And doing all she can to maintain the dignified stance she feels she deserves after getting in the final word, she waddles out the door in her maternity dress and flip-flops.

**[] [] []**

The crime scene has been roped off with yellow tape, and for the time being, the area is off limits to campers and hikers. The federal agents who have just arrived on scene, sweating after their hike up from the barely suitable landing site, can only stare. The scene of carnage is even more brutal than the ones they have seen since Leslie Laughlin's fanged, smiling corpse began this macabre circus. Tall, robust oak trees have been uprooted, as if by a giant-child in the passion of a tantrum.

_Trees._

"Jesus," says a male agent. Turning from the flora, he points at the devastated fauna on the ground. "Animals do that?"

"We think so," says a local officer, eyeing the bites that have torn at the victims' flesh, peeling denim away from gaping wounds. "Forest ranger said the teeth patterns look like black bear. Anyway, we sent a saliva sample off to TBI for analyzing."

"Jesus," he says again.

The female with him stoops to examine the precise wound on a head that still wears glasses.

"She was the target," she muses aloud to her partner. Looking around at the others, she bites her lip at the shame of it and adds, "The others were just . . . collateral damage."

"Did your guys find any DNA?" asks the male.

"Well . . ." The officer scratches his jaw in vague discomfiture. "We found a few black hairs, but tell the truth, we won't know till they get back from the lab if they're from the perp or the other . . . meaning a bear, o' course, if that _is _what tore the bodies up post mortem. But . . ."

"But?"

"We also found a marshmallow, kindly down in the ashes, on a stick. Had a bite took out of it. Being that there's three victims, and just the one roasting stick, we were pretty hopeful."

The female agent shuts her eyes for a moment and lifts her brows in amazement at the absolute _audacity_ of the idea.

"You're telling me he sat down and toasted marshmallows?" She sweeps her hand at the scene. "After _this_?"

"Well, ma'am, I'm a little more bothered by the tore-up trees. That wudn't no act of nature."

The male agent snorts a bit and grimly locks eyes with the female. Turning back to the local, he states:

"Officer, I'm going to give you another picture."

"One that ain't a hundred years old?" the officer suggests dryly. He is exaggerating somewhat. The composite drawing of the uncaptured serial killer known only as _Sylar_ is roughly eighty years of age, give or take.

"Heh. Well, yes and no. Fact is, the first picture _does_ represent the man we're looking for. An eyelash found at the scene in Montana came back a match. I can't explain it, and I'd rather not try. I just want to catch the bastard."

"We're doing all we can to cooperate."

"I know that." He crosses his arms. "All right. Gradually, it has become apparent that our perp has a fan. Stalker may be a more accurate term. While interviewing witnesses and spooling through security footage looking for our guy, we discovered that another man was repeatedly appearing in the vicinity of the crime scenes, and that his appearance and departure were practically simultaneous as the projected ones of the killer. This despite the fact that the murders happen at apparent random across the country. We know from the times of his appearance in hotel security footage that he isn't the killer. As far as that goes, he's got a rock-solid alibi in the form of digital video. At first, we thought he might be an accomplice. When we learned his identity, we changed our minds about that. Our idea is that, as he doesn't _know_ he's being sought in connection with these murders, he may be more careless and therefore more easily spotted."

"So who is he?" the officer asks.

"His name is Joshua Gallo. He's from New York. No criminal record. Just recently, he got a little taste of the legal system after he went to visit a man in prison. Now it turns out there's a pretty sordid little backstory. Few years ago, this man, Jansen, comes home and finds his wife in bed with her stepbrother—namely, Gallo. Jansen, who was maybe not such a nice guy to begin with, doesn't take it very well. He kills his wife and starts to kill Gallo, but the gun misfires. They go over a railing together, Jansen smacks down on the hardwood, Gallo smacks down on Jansen, Jansen goes to prison for life. Done and done, you'd think. _But_, not so much.

"Turns out, Gallo was never happy with Jansen's sentence. In hindsight, he wished he'd landed on Jansen a little harder. Only he's a good citizen, right, so he thought the courts would take care of it. Buuuut, Jansen's attorneys started throwing around phrases like _crime of passion_, and jurors started sympathizing. Hell, nobody likes to come home and find their woman in bed with the Sunday company, right? When the verdict was read, Gallo had a breakdown and spent some time in the loopy ward at a hospital. Gets out, carries on with his life, everything's fine until just a few months ago."

"What happened a few months ago?"

"Well, see, that's the best part. Gallo arranges to have a little heart-to-heart with Jansen in the state prison. During the visit, Jansen fucking disappears." He pauses for effect. "Along with the security camera, and the security _guard_, in fact. That's two human beings and a complex machine, gone. From a high security state prison."

"Disappeared?" The officer almost shies away. Along with the uprooted trees, this is just too much. "You mean . . . poof?"

"I do mean poof. Poof is a good way to describe it, don't you think?" he asks his partner, who uses her hands to illustrate _poof_.

"How'd he do it?" Marvel and horror combine in the officer's voice.

"_Did_ he do it?" The federal agent throws up his hands. "All the questioning in the world couldn't get to the bottom of it. There was nothing on the guy. If you count the wall of bullet-proof glass as a true partition, he wasn't even in the room when it happened."

"All right, now tell me what he's got to do with all _this_." The officer gestures at the bodies before them.

"Will do. One reason Gallo was widely suspected of being behind the state prison poofery—aside from his proximity, of course—was that, according to his close relatives, he had begun to express a lot of vigilante-type ideas and plans. They thought he was lapsing mentally and were trying to convince him to commit himself to another tour in the hospital, when _he_ disappeared. But not like poof. Like vroom-vroom. And he starts showing up in coincidence with these murders. We _then_ thought he was targeting the killer. After all, it would have made sense."

"You _thought?_"

"If he's targeting the killer, why hasn't he made a move? It would seem he's had plenty of opportunities."

"So . . ." The officer shakes his head, completely baffled. All this information is making his head spin. "Then, what?"

"Then the killer isn't the target," the agent winds down with a shrug.

"So who _is?_" He feels he must have _some_ kind of resolution for all this.

The female agent is popping on a latex glove, preparing to rifle for more bear hair, and to check mouths for traces of marshmallow in the teeth.

"Someone else," she supplies, quite reasonably.


End file.
